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Comment by ataru | Hacker News Reader

Maybe he doesn't want to have to create an account. Maybe he doesn't want to figure out how to disable cloud saves. Maybe he doesn't want to pay a subscription fee. Maybe he doesn't want emojis, mentions, hash tags and recommendations about what his friends are reading. Maybe he doesn't want a analytics report in his mail describing about how he used the software this week. Maybe he doesn't want "undoubtedly absolutely necessary telemetry" being reported. Maybe the old ways were better.

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"Maybe he doesn't want to have to create an account." - oooff, this this home hard. I tried to print something the other day here at home and I couldn't because I had to log into my printer's software. I couldn't remember my password, or even the email address I used to set it up. What should have been a very simply file -> print turned into a long process of registering a new account, password doesn't meet complexity rules, verify your account, sign back in, etc... to print a one page thing while I was in a hurry.

Edit: If anybody from printers (specifically HP) is reading this. Stop. Just stop.

This seems like a false dichotomy - Libreoffice/Openoffice and Abiword don't have any of these anti-features (except for telemetry, which is useful (when sent to a trusted party)).

Or maybe they weren’t and you’re just making an appeal to antiquity out of misplaced nostalgia and recollections about some amorphous Golden Age that never quite existed as you remember.

I think, in general, this is a good counterpoint. But the things mentioned really do suck. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact you can just use Google or Facebook to log into everything more people would complain.

The obsession with modern software has with mining every single bit of data they can is a huge step in the wrong direction. The silly "features"--like the 'what you do' or 'what your friends' do reports--are more annoying than interesting.

I don't mind, or might even enjoy, that kind of thing when I sign up for it, but it really doesn't need to be in every piece of software I use.

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