Conservative Technology

techuser — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 23:13:05 +0000

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Shock news: some users of Youtube post illiterate comments stating how much they hate the new widescreen video format.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7749000/7749536.stm

This is getting more common. Back in the early 90s, when the Internet was still exploring what it could do, who could have predicted that it would become infested with luddites? If change in technology fears these people so much, they should switch their computers off!

This has also happened with Facebook. Yes, the new Facebook is slow and it takes twice as long to do anything. But had it remained the same, it would have stagnated. No doubt people hated the recent BBC facelift to pure-CSS too. I was put off for a short while, but you know what? When I look at an old BBC news article I am hit immediately with how much easier the new format is to read and navigate.

There is no room on the Internet for conservatism.

That's not to say change is always good - Microsoft thrashing around in its death throws with Vista and Office 2007 is perhaps a good example. Little change for the positive for users; virtually no change in Office beyond the menus and in Visio not even that (let's ignore the half/half situation in Outlook lest I punch my monitor).

Technological Wanderings - progress

Conservative Technology