I was in Lesotho, a small country completely surrounded by South Africa (when the White farmers were expanding and taking all the Africans' farmland, they left Lesotho because it was all mountains, but with no minerals).
I don't think that's representative of most non-CS professionals. Most people in the fields I know (mostly professors, medical doctors, and businesspeople) can use google chrome, word, powerpoint, and a little of excel decently. There are the occasional few who confuse spreadsheets and databases, but no one who thinks shutting down computers or closing windows is hard. Heck, my ageing dad managed to troubleshoot his printer without any help, and he has no formal computer experience whatsoever.
HN has a long history of patronising the "average user" in the guise of paternal figures who don't realise that what they are doing is belittling the vast majority of tech users. I'm guilty of it myself. But they're capable of a lot more than we think they are.
Ultimately, it comes down to the willingness people have to learn new things. If they're curious enough to think about how things work, they'll be fine.
I'm not doing this to be patronising, more like telling people or myself that assumptions i make, are just not necessarily true for everyone.
And weirdly enough, a Task like sorting a file with data in it, if you are not a professional, windows offers very if not non single way of doing this. You would need to understand file types, understand that csv can be imported for excel, you need excel, than you need to understand excel how to sort stuff in it.
The ffirst thing I do in Excel is select the pseudo table and click on table -> insert to make it a sortable / real table. I showed this to every one in my Team full of studied CS people because non of them knew this.
Well, I didn't mean for this to be patronizing, but rather as a warning that not everybody is at the same level and the spread is huge. I see it often enough.
In my country, state schools strictly forbid students from bringing devices to school. This rule was actually introduced because of the haves/have-nots issue here, because many kids are too poor to afford devices. The schools themselves don't provide devices because it would be prohibitively expensive due to the large student population. Most private schools don't allow devices either.
Attach hooks to the bottom of the blimp and send a guy in a heavy sled with hooks on it, with helium balloons attached to it, to the bottom of the blimp. Attach the sled to the hooks on the blimp, then get the guy to pop all the sled's balloons. The blimp will land on the ground gently, if the math is right.
Network effects will keep a person on a platform until a critical mass of their social circle decide to leave all at once. I'm no expert, but I suspect that that critical mass is pretty high, maybe more than 50% of a person's circle. So it's not exactly vanilla free-market competition. Entrenched players have a pretty big advantage.
what does your social circle being on Instagram bring to you? seriously, this picture-sharing app has evolved into this content spread machine that brings very little value.
When most of your social circle exists on one platform, you tend to use that platform less for its specific features, and more because of the fact that all your friends are there. I don't personally use Instagram, and this is anecdotal information, but I know a lot of people who only use Instagram to see what their friends and family are up to, and to watch the occasional reel.
But you're absolutely right about Instagram's evolution. It's crazy.
First you said that people should use decentralized platforms. Now you acknowledge that there's nobody of value on those platforms so now you say people should stop wanting to connect in the first place.
I mean, okay? Next time just say social media is a cancer, and don't waste our time moving goal posts.
> that there's nobody of value on those platforms so now you say people should stop wanting to connect in the first place
that's exactly what i said and not a figment of your imagination.
if your social circle mostly exists on instagram like the person that i was replying to mentioned :), then you have no social life. any of these platforms is just an add-on to real social interaction. prioritize the real thing and the platform stops mattering.
Well, maybe it was normal ~10 years ago, when that comic was published, but is now getting rarer and rarer, as each new generation consolidates itself on a single platform.
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