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Backseat Software (mikeswanson.com) 98

Posted by msmash from the state-of-affairs dept.
Mike Swanson, commenting on modern software's intrusive, attention-seeking behavior: What if your car worked like so many apps? You're driving somewhere important...maybe running a little bit late. A few minutes into the drive, your car pulls over to the side of the road and asks:

"How are you enjoying your drive so far?"

Annoyed by the interruption, and even more behind schedule, you dismiss the prompt and merge back into traffic.

A minute later it does it again.

"Did you know I have a new feature? Tap here to learn more."

It blocks your speedometer with an overlay tutorial about the turn signal. It highlights the wiper controls and refuses to go away until you demonstrate mastery.

Ridiculous, of course.

And yet, this is how a lot of modern software behaves. Not because it's broken, but because we've normalized an interruption model that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else.
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  • Was there supposed to be a link in this "news story", or is /. doing short form op-eds now?

  • Yes. It's software written for children by childre (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:17AM (#65958778)

    Serious software written by serious people for serious use is often in-house work and rarely has marketshare beyond the developers and their immediate target audience within a single organization. Sometimes it's OSS'd but often it isn't even marketed outside the organization it's created in.

    As such it is crowded out by software written for the hoi polloi by businesses whose model depends less on functionality and more on not getting a reputation as too hard or too geeky for broad appeal.

    Often enough it gets so big and bloated with occasionally useful features it displaces the aforementioned useful software, on the grounds that in house stuff is expensive so let's just pay someone else to worry about it.

    This is one of the reasons it takes me about 5 minutes to log into a conference room computer at work, and why I have to click through a half dozen signin screens to get to my slide deck every single time.

    I'd say the days of overhead projectors and vuegraphs were better, but I'm just old enough to remember the smell of transparencies going through a laser printer to not actually make that claim.

    • I don't think I'd insult children that way. Children would at least start from a blank slate, and they wouldn't be "burdened" w/ preserving compatibility w/ something that already exists. At least no one would expect that from them
      • It's actually morons, not children. Sometimes one can't help but wonder whether those responsible for the design and implementation of the end user-facing web sites GUIs are selected on the basis of their inveterate stupidity and ignorance. Well, they seem to be code monkeys all right.

    • Serious software written by serious people for serious use is often in-house work and rarely has marketshare beyond the developers and their immediate target audience within a single organization

      MS Office, and in particular Excel, is a bit of an outlier here (you said often, not always). I wonder if that's one reason for its success: it simply allows people to get work done. It's not always the best tool for the job, perhaps even not often, but people get work done with it and it doesn't get too much in their way. Still too much for my taste, but that's beside the point.

  • No, we haven't normalised it. (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:19AM (#65958782)

    We just have absolutely no power to change it.

    It's bestowed upon us by greedy bastards who want to sell us worthless things against our will and who know that the only way to make us pay up for all the ridiculous subscriptions and features is bully us into compliance.

    • In some ways people normalized it.

      How was it in the past? You got the program, you got its manual (whether paper or a file) and then you read the manual if you cant find some function. Try to do this with apps - users would likely complain that it's inconvenient, they don't understand how to use the program and that having to read instructions is unacceptable.

      Then you get shit like the constant interruptions. After all, people love being interrupted - that's why various sites have notifications and why peop

      • In some ways people normalized it.

        After a fashion yes. For instance, wife spends a lot of time on Youtube. I have a sub, and don't get any, but she says she doesn't want one. I utterly hate the ads. She apparently doesn't mind them. Weird thing - she is hella more impatient than me.

        I quess a lot of people think that the intrusions are just part of using teh intertoobz.

    • We just have absolutely no power to change it.

      It's bestowed upon us by greedy bastards who want to sell us worthless things against our will and who know that the only way to make us pay up for all the ridiculous subscriptions and features is bully us into compliance.

      Since when are we helpless?

      In the process of battening down my computer, I've eliminated almost all that bullshit. I did get pissed off at it in the past, because the constant stream interrupts my mental workflow.

      I hope you were making a joke.

    • We just have absolutely no power to change it.

      It's bestowed upon us by greedy bastards who want to sell us worthless things against our will and who know that the only way to make us pay up for all the ridiculous subscriptions and features is bully us into compliance.

      Food. Clothing. Shelter.

      A large enough Recession has a rather in-your-fucking-face kind of way of reminding the pimps slinging worthless things just how worthless their entire business existence can become. Rather quickly.

      At the end of the day, humans have an actual need for none of the stupid shit. Probably why most pimps try and sling addiction with their worthless crap. It's one of the only ways to keep revenue hanging on.

  • use less software (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:19AM (#65958784)
    I know it's an unpopular opinion, but.. why are we so willing to enter into dependency on software, clouds, and suppliers?
    Convenience is killing us. Truthfully, we are lazy and when a shortcut is offered, we take it. Makes sense, right?
    Only up until the point of total dependency.

    Once you've been trained to think within the idioms of Apple, Microsoft, etc, you can't even imagine alternatives. Sad.
    Good for making $$, bad for society.

    • "why are we so willing to enter into dependency on software, clouds, and suppliers?"

      Because it is irrational to think you can build the entire world single-handedly.

      Even if it were feasible, in many cases it would be pointless. What value could you derive from e.g. a slashdot but just for you?

      • For Joe Sixpack, you're right. The de-facto position is that there is no choice. He's trapped.
        For any business that has information to protect as the core of their business... it's myopic.
        Any real business needs to protect it's key assets, and face it, management is all MBAs... they embrace dependency, because it's not CAPEX.
        It's not really a blind spot. If you point it out, you're told "we can manage that risk". Bullshit.
        You'll be shouted down for suggesting things like data security, self determination ar

    • Software itself is fine. I like using things like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio,... when I have to. I want to use a computer for things that people do on computers, be it creating documents, presentations, analyzing data, diagrams and so on

      The problem is AI - asking the computer to do those very things for me. If the AI is gonna do it, where's the need for me to do squat? Note that there are things in the world that could use AI, particularly complex tasks, be it on factory floors or in operation the

      • very much agree. There is a role for advanced techniques notably in narrow specialized areas like medicine, chemistry, astronomy. I'm just rephrasing what you just said I think.

        You know, I wonder when the prevailing attitudes switched from you make most money from defining narrow, vertical markets, where you can define your value proposition, and therefore charge big bucks to this "all things to all people" attitude. As a younger person, I recall having pretty much every product idea I ever had shot down w

  • Useful Alert (Score:5, Insightful)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:20AM (#65958788)
    It sounds like you're using proprietary software in an era of late-stage capitalism. Would you like me to help you find open source alternatives that leave you the hell alone while you work?

    • Re:Useful Alert (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ed65love ( 2884415 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:30AM (#65958802) Homepage

      Exactly! Open Source software, while not doing everything paid software does, is usually designed mainly to do the actual task at hand, and not tie you into some proprietary business model based on subscription or worse :(

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah find me the open source equivalent of SolidWorks

      • It's still nowhere close to SolidWorks, but FreeCAD has come a *long* way in the last few years. It may not be suitable for an engineer, but most of the scientists I work with who just need to occasionally draw up a relatively simple part for the machinist or 3D printer have switched.

    • It sounds like you're using proprietary software in an era of late-stage capitalism. Would you like me to help you find open source alternatives that leave you the hell alone while you work?

      First thing is you have to seize the means of production, and allow the proletariat to rise in an ongoing revolution toward a brave new future.

      • That is already done. anyone can write software.

        The real problem with this idiot is thinking we are in late stage capitalism, rather than recognizing that the United States is in early state plutocracy.

        We have allowed people claiming to be capitalists to negate the free market and instead put multiple anti-capitalist features into the economy, including, but not limited to:

        1) Tariffs. (I still can't believe we are doing this old, weak crap)
        2) Anti-ownership rules put into contracts (no repair, right to br

        • That is already done. anyone can write software.

          The real problem with this idiot is thinking we are in late stage capitalism, rather than recognizing that the United States is in early state plutocracy.

          We have allowed people claiming to be capitalists to negate the free market and instead put multiple anti-capitalist features into the economy, including, but not limited to:

          1) Tariffs. (I still can't believe we are doing this old, weak crap) 2) Anti-ownership rules put into contracts (no repair, right to brick, etc.) 3) Monopolies

          One huge scam pulled on people is people claiming to be capitalists, or free marketeers.

          When applied without restraint both systems fail quickly. As soon as one gtoup rises to the top, the last thing they want is a free market. Same with capitalism. Some amount of restraint is necessary to keep either in bounds.

          The people who make the most, don't want to share it. The top "capitalists" want all the other's capital, a system based on greed can work if we keep the pathological greedy from wrecking it.

  • The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporters were talkative elevators (lifts) in the offices of Hitchhiker's Guide... and they were afraid of heights.

  • Whenever I install new app on my tablet or phone, one of the first things that happens on first startup is request by the OS "Do you want to allow this app to send you notifications". By default I say no, unless it's specifically a messaging app.

    Windows also has this for notifications in system tray.
    So does at least KDE for Linux desktop environments.

    You can also change these settings later if you first give the permission and then start getting too many notifications.

    I know that when I installed Booking.co

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wed128 ( 722152 )
      Way to not understand the story at all --this isn't about notifications to some tray or whatever, this is about microsoft teams (or similar proprietary software) popping up a big modal window in front of whatever you're trying to do.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zarhan ( 415465 )

        Huh? Haven't seen that happen in...10 years or so, and even then, only on Windows. And even then it was mostly some obnoxious software update checkers or something that just started up on boot. On any other OS they were either not there (iOS/Android) or didn't steal focus (Anything Unix-based).

        Since you mention Teams, when it starts up, yeah, it fills the screen, but after that, well, if a call comes in, it appears at bottom right corner. Unless you set DND.

        I really have no idea what you (or the story) mean

  • Some slimy sales manager, which I liken to a Soviet "Political Officer" character in a mid-80s cheesy novel, said, "What if we did $this during normal operation, so we could insert some ads and 'improve' the 'user experience'?" Meanwhile, the actual developers are like, "WTF? Who would want that?" But the Political Officer has a higher rank, and the CEO listens to him more, so users are left with a shitified experience.

    Fk these managers. Every last one of them.

  • Only crazy if it doesn't work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fropenn ( 1116699 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @10:50AM (#65958850)

    we've normalized an interruption model that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else

    It has been 'normalized' because it works. You may hate it, users may hate it...but enough people do give their email address any time someone asks for it, and enough people do activate new, paid features because they were prompted to do so, and enough people do start using new features that they didn't know were available because they were pushed in front of them, which makes these practices profitable and a routine way of doing business. It's psychology and you can either have your product fit psychology or you can go out of business.

    You may hate it, but most of the world prefers to download freemium software and buy 'coins' and 'access' as they go, rather than pay $89.99 one-time and have all the features ready instantly, even if that means they eventually spend much more than $90 in total.

    That's human psychology and while it works for the majority, many of us in the minority can hate it but there's little we can do about it.

    • You may hate it, but most of the world prefers to download freemium software and buy 'coins' and 'access' as they go, rather than pay $89.99 one-time and have all the features ready instantly, even if that means they eventually spend much more than $90 in total. That's human psychology and while it works for the majority, many of us in the minority can hate it but there's little we can do about it.

      It can be done. We can batten things down pretty well. Most people here should be astute enough to do the work to eliminate most of it.

      I hate the intrusions with a passion - I mean I come close to a temper tantrum, because it interrupts my mental workflow.

      I do think you are right that most people don't care. I sure do.

      • I do think you are right that most people don't care. I sure do.

        Me too! Ad-blocker on web browser, always pay for ad-free streaming, and pay a subscription for ad-free games. If I'm "required" to share an email address, I use hidemy so I can turn it off when they (inevitably) start spamming me.

        But most people don't seem to care. I watch my mom use her phone, and she certainly has the money to pay for ad-free, intrusion-free games and websites, but instead she watches the ads (sometimes clicking through to shady sites) and her screen is an endless stream of notificatio

        • I do think you are right that most people don't care. I sure do.

          Me too! Ad-blocker on web browser, always pay for ad-free streaming, and pay a subscription for ad-free games. If I'm "required" to share an email address, I use hidemy so I can turn it off when they (inevitably) start spamming me. But most people don't seem to care. I watch my mom use her phone, and she certainly has the money to pay for ad-free, intrusion-free games and websites, but instead she watches the ads (sometimes clicking through to shady sites) and her screen is an endless stream of notifications, announcements, etc....she seems to enjoy it that way...?

          Fortunately my wife is more cautious about clicking on stuff than I am, very unusual for a non-technical woman. She'll ask me if something is okay.

          Places like Facebook capitalize on that. They have a lot of "ads" for these (frankly) adorable cat t-shirts and sweaters. She asked, so I clicked on one, and my computer blocked it immediately. Another wanted people to try to buy something, then same thing happend. So you get a lot of people clicking, and unknowingly giving out their emaill and identity.

          But

  • props to this post. totally true!

  • We joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @11:20AM (#65958938)
    We joke about this happening to cars of course but it car manufacturers thought they could get away with it we'd be bombarded with the same kind of enshitification in vehicles. They're already trying in car advertising on for size, it won't be long before "we've noticed you're near a Turd Burgers, stop in for a double colon blocker now, we will automatically redirect your navigation in 3... 2... 1..."

    Of course the part of me that enjoys driving will say that cars have been on the enshitification track for years. Automatic transmissions, soft suspension, computerisation, drivers aids with their useless bings, bongs and warbles, SUVs, cars getting bigger and lardier with each iteration. It's hard to find a drivers car these days, a nice, simple, RWD, lightweight 6sp manual (they don't even need to be that powerful, my 140 HP MR2 never failed to put a smile on my face). Kids these days have no idea of the unadulterated joy of nailing the perfect gear change (You are welcome on my lawn, just don't make a mess, K, I can still remember being young).

    • Kids these days have no idea of the unadulterated joy of nailing the perfect gear change

      Pffft. Please millennial, come back and talk to us when you've driven something with some shitty enshittified "synchromesh" gearbox. Real men drive tractors, not that crappy sports car rubbish. And letting people walk on your lawn? What kind of bullshit is that! Why even have a lawn if you're going to treat it like that.

      On a more serious note. Cars are a utility. Only a tiny subset of them exist to put a smile on your face. And smiles exist for different reasons. Having driven a manual for years I have a fa

    • ... nailing the perfect gear change ...

      There's no longer a demand for excellence: Obtaining perfection in everyday activities is no longer a personal goal for young people. They play online games where the only rule is point and click: Many times, there isn't a performance rating (high score, items collected, secrets found, monsters killed, kill cost/proficiency). Gaining attention (likes, retweets) is the preferred measure of success and value.

  • This is why whenever I install software on my phone, I immediately disable notifications from it. I'm not interested to know that I can get five gold stars if I play 10 more levels of a game! STFU!

  • "It blocks your speedometer"

    My vehicle already does this with a giant box that tells me I have my seatbelt on (I know I'm the one who just put it on). I have to click Ok on the steering wheel to get to go away. The computer requires a lot of excessive interaction when I'm driving, it's unbelievable really.

    • My car whinging that I'm wearing a seat belt would be grounds for a refund, to me. I would complain about a deliberate effort to hide the speedometer, to a consumer safety service.

  • all the intrusive ads and overlays. “me! me! me! look at me!!!”

  • Expected... (Score:3)

    by null etc. ( 524767 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @12:10PM (#65959092)

    All enshittified services now beg for engagement, to make lines go up for investor. This is just the typical progression that one would expect, as our society approaches one or more episodes of Black Mirror.

  • We have forced companies to do this (Score:3)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @12:34PM (#65959162) Homepage

    Here's what happens if they don't nag you to rate their app.

    If left to their own devices, only the complainers will bother to rate apps. The only way to counteract this tendency, is to regularly ask people to rate your app. It's the app-maker's way to drown out the negative reviews with positive ones.

    My company just went through this, their app ratings were like 1 or 1.5 stars. When they added the nag messages to rate the app, the ratings immediately went up to 4.5 or so.

    So like it or not, we drove the app makers to this.

  • I use an ad blocker on my browser. Seemingly every few days it pops up it's own interruption telling me how many ads it has blocked and begs for money.
    Do the creators really not understand?
  • That way, a command like rm -rf / won't bother you with a bunch of irellevent jabber. You just get a command prompt back. The last one you'll ever see.

  • stop buying (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @01:11PM (#65959294)

    This is precisely why I stopped buying Nitro Pro, it stops you in your tracks and demands a survey. There is no way to turn off the survey. Even if you answer the survey you will still get the pop-up about it.

    I gave them my feedback. I asked for a way to turn it off. I'm a paying customer with many licenses. They wouldn't even give me the time of day. So fuck them, they will never see another penny from me.

  • No need for a car analogy. This is real (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday January 30, 2026 @01:15PM (#65959308)

    For anyone who has recently setup Android Auto your car very much DOES do this. Worse still, it acts on its own bullshit.

    Me: "Hey Google, navigate home."
    Car: "Ok, navigating home. Did you know you can also ask for other things such as by saying Hey Google, play the news?"
    Car: "Ok, changing the radio station to NewsFM"

    Ooooh Microsoft should take note on its edge popups.
    Me: [Clicks "No leave settings as they are"]
    Microsoft: "You're all setup. You can change your settings at any time by saying Hey Cortana, change my default browser to Edge."
    Cortana: "Okay, changing the default browser to Edge."

    Marketing: "Yes we experienced a "bug" where Edge was set as the default browser".

    • I always expected Amazon to increase profits by running loud ads on TV and radio saying, "Alexa, order for immediate delivery!" That will teach you for not requiring a PIN number for any purchase!

    • Whenever I enable it, I do not talk to it. Instead, I hit the buttons I need to get it to do exactly what I need

      • Why would you do that? Sounds unsafe. Keep your hands on the steering wheel.

        • I was referring to at the start of the trip. If I wanted to navigate home, I'd first - before I set off - set the navigation and everything, and then start driving. In b/w, if I were to get a phone call, I'd use the controls on the steering wheel to pick up and disconnect the calls, and my phone is also set to automatically send a response if I get a text. At any rate, I don't have voice commands enabled on it

          Other than that, the only time my right hand goes off the steering (the left hand still has it

  • Corporate software, especially software on devices (IoT, cars, phones, tablets) , is legit malware in today's world. Malware can be defined as anything that works against the wishes of the owner of a given thing. When the manufacturer has more control than the owner, then malware is involved even if it came from the manufacturer directly, it is first party malware. Security has turned away from protect the owner from 3rd parties to protect the manufacturer from the owner.

  • It is a business truck so I keep a mileage log. And every time one of their little useful messages needs to be sent they display it over the odometer reading.
    Now, for some warnings pressing the check mark will make it go away. For others I need to take it to the dealer to get the sensors tweaked and the message reset. $$
    • Every car that I've ever seen do this has a way of resetting the OBDII errors, either holding a combination of dash buttons, or even simpler, just disconnecting the battery for like 30sec. You will need to drive something like 25miles before any codes will trigger, because they need to complete a "baseline" reading before they can figure out which codes to display. This also will let you know if a code is real, or just a sensor needing a reset.
  • Modern software often shows a penchant for making decisions and coming up with suggestions purportedly for own good. Rather than just doing what we tell it to do and stay out of sight until commanded again to do something. Yes, I hate this with passion.
  • Almost every time I ask google something on my car touchscreen connected to Android Auto, it puts up a popup asking me to rate my Google Assistant experience... that would be a popup OVER the map I'm trying to use to navigate! Also, please stop asking me to confirm the reports of police car sightings... again, it's obstructing my map and making me miss my exit.

  • What the article is referring to is Microslop software. It's Microslop that does this and not many others. This is another one of the small things I love about Linux software. Users don't want these annoyances and so they don't exist. My software doesn't treat me like a retard and I appreciate that.

    The sad part about all this is the kind of people that need this kind of hand-holding tutorial don't benefit from it because they just plain don't read pop ups or error messages.

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