this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
1023 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
74180 readers
4140 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is very upsetting to me--more as a point of principle than in fact--but I appreciate that it doesn't bother younger generations at all. I just had a small argument with my 11 year old about how not-a-big-deal-who-cares this is, and it basically ended with us agreeing to disagree since it'll be his problem and his kids' problem.
And the problem is normalizing the notion that an OS doesn't need to include a non-subscription word processor. The entire point of this move is to shift the OS Overton Window in favor of consumers accepting and expecting that features like word processors, spreadsheets, etc., should be installed separately and paid for on a subscription basis despite previous iterations of the same software being feature complete on install and purchased at a set, non-recurring fee.
WordPad hasn't been anybody's first choice for a word processor in years, but it was included with Windows and did the bare minimum for unsophisticated users. Now we're entering an era in which those users will as a matter of course buy off-the-shelf computers that come pre-installed without WordPad, but rather with a trial of Office Fuck-You-Pay-Me Edition. Those users may well discover that after their first six months with their new computer (that has made Microsoft more money selling their data than they paid for it), they suddenly get a pop-up informing them that their trial is up and MS wants $99.99 to release the documents they're holding hostage.
It's a step backwards for consumers in general, so even for the sophisticated of us who are least likely to be personally affected by this change, there's definitely cause for alarm.
Google Docs is free and has basically become the standard word processor for the “unsophisticated users” you’re worried about. It essentially comes with your OS because you only need a browser to use it.
I think your kid and his children will survive.
Making things in Google Docs is fine, but last I checked Google Docs just sucked at opening anything that wasn't already a GDoc. LibreOffice Writer sometimes has formatting errors opening Word Docs, but it does a miles better job than Google Docs.
Also, I hate how normalized everything using the cloud (aka "Someone Else's Hard Drive") for no reason is.
Well to be fair to Google (urgh, that hurt to write) that's by design, and LO doing so well at it is due to investing a lot of engineering time on it. Basically MS released an open standard for office documents, but refuses to use this open standard themselves, and instead keeps using an ever evolving "transitional" version of their standard that isn't made public.