The Happy Moron

This is an angry post.

Recently Facebook “updated” its interface. I noticed no great improvement, but the bugs really riled me. Try to write a comment… doesn’t work. Okay then.

When I logged in to my yahoo mail, there was a little box asking me, “What are you doing right now?”

Do you remember back when e-mail was just e-mail and your webmail provider was happy just to show you ads and track your browsing with cookies? When it didn’t feel the need to pry into your current goings on? Why does my webmail care what I’m doing right now?!?

I’m trying to check my e-mail. Grrr.

Oh look… In my inbox is an e-mail from Amazon telling me I can save 14%… on a book I already bought through them. In case… I want a second copy? If you’re going to run a smart recommendation system, at least make it smart.

Google Buzz is already getting deserved flak for:

1. Auto-populating your followers lists with the people you email the most
2. Making that list public by default.

Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to DISCLOSE TO THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD THE LIST OF WHO YOU TALK TO MOST WITHOUT EVER ASKING YOU???

When all you ever wanted from Google’s webmail service was, umm.. WEBMAIL!!!

Whatever happened to not bait and switching your clients?

I get that these are all free services. I get that they owe me nothing. But all I see right now is a bunch of big companies who see me as a tiny little chip in their battle to exert their control over the web. I get that everything they’re doing is probably allowed by the Terms of Service that I agreed to without reading carefully.

I get that I’m just angry and cantankerous because of other things and that they’re just receiving the brunt of it.

But they’re still abusing me. With broken software. And it hurts.

Pain, ladies and gentleman. Web 2.0 pain.

But it’s still better than AOL.

Oh, AOL. All of the sleaze, but none of the rounded corners and unoffensive light blue color schemes. A walled garden community where customers were a valuable resource to be exploited.

You were truly visionary, but you were 15 years ahead of your time.

Thank God for Lent. I’m not sure how I’d survive computers, otherwise.