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Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

Or just put it behind a permission prompt and quit ruining all the cool features of the web for the rest of us

I cannot think of a single time I want my phone to start vibrating in a web context outside of a very deep game integration.

"Very deep"... is that subtle innuendo?

No. It isn't. And this isn't the place for that.

Edit: I was thinking of simulation gaming, such as racing (forced feedback, hitting the wall), Fishing (fish on the line, rumble as forced feedback, etc)

This is 100% the place for that. On the XBox Live Indie Games marketplace, the top-selling game was always a "scalp massager" game (or "game") of some sort.

I think previous poster is saying this is not really the place for titillating innuendo, or low effort jokes about such, which I’d tend to agree.

And I'm saying that teledildonics is a fascinating and rewarding area of consumer tech that 100% deserves a visible place on HN without resorting to hints and innuendo.

This and many other features need to be bundled up behind a single permission prompt that gives the domain permission to be an app instead of a web site—and that permission should probably come with stricter restrictions on loading third-party resources.

It would be tough to make such a thing work because then every site would annoy you into being an app.

In Chrome, there's already a toolbar displaying that you can install the website as PWA. In addition, a lot of websites already try to stop you from using the web in favour of using the app (e. g. Reddit). So, I don't see this as a new annoyance.

Hence why the invasive permissions need to be paired with restrictions that impose a tradeoff and incentivize sites with a more traditional web page usage model to not classify themselves as app-style sites.

I can't think of a single time I wanted to allow push notifications or allow for my camera or mic to be accessed, but I can at least acknowledge that others may want this.

This is done with a lot of features already: In practice, users click to authorize it, and then do not understand why their computers do scary things. Just putting stuff behind yet another permission prompt users do not understand is not an acceptable position.

I really feel a lot of people in Silicon Valley have not ever just sat back and watched a non-technical user use a computer: The state of the industry is woefully disconnected from actual user experience. I beseech anyone who thinks a permission prompt solves a problem, rather than creating one, to go to a senior living community, and just watch people use computers.

> go to a senior living community, and just watch people use computers.

Experiences like this make me wish there were chromebook like machines that didn't spy on users, because that's really the only ethical solution.

Non-technical users can have the locked down machines, with a way to opt in to a higher degree of access possibly, and power users can get the full machines.

I know this sounds elitist of me, but this is the only way I honestly see everyone getting what they want.

The problem is that it isn't out place to decide that people simply aren't allowed to do something because they are too stupid or senile to be even given the option to do something they might actively want... I appreciate the intent, but the result still feels morally reprehensible (and I will note that, if it had been applied to computers from the beginning, most of the cool stuff we use wouldn't exist).

I think it's a big stretch to say leaving the ability for a website to vibrate your phone out of the web standard is "morally reprehensible". Nor am I suggesting users are too stupid or senile: They just care less about the plumbing than the plumbers do.

The problem is when all your user experience studies grab folks from tech communities, you start to think people can or want to cope with your constantly evolving stack of features, when they probably just want to find out how to get to a restaurant that day.

Having it without a prompt is also not a acceptable situation.

I think HTML should be split in web sites, and applications. If a page wants to use the camera, or vibration, etc., it should take you to "Programs & Features" or the Apps settings and say:

"This website XXX is a program, not a page. Do you want to install this program?"

I would even consider make the list of "programs" visible at all times on the edge of the last start screen page, and limit it to 12 programs or so, in order to prevent people from installing all kinds of junk.

> I think HTML should be split in web sites, and applications.

You have reinvented native apps

I’m totally fine with having features like this living in website settings but it should be non-promptable.

> Or just put it behind a permission prompt

There are now dozens of APIs requiring a permission prompt. Enough.

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