

The Internet is Hard (RWW on users vs geeks) - davidmurphy
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/open_thread_the_internet_is_hard.php

======
chops
I read this with a cringe the whole time. I actually found it a little
depressing. I just want to say "Really...?! REALLY?!"

It's easy to write these kind of users off as idiots, but this reminds me that
any time you mess with a users' interface by trying to improve it, you have to
tread carefully, or you'll confuse the kind of folks that can't tell the
difference between a random blog and the _#2 website in the world_ (and who
get there by typing "Facebook login" into "the internet").

I can't even try to make a serious comment without a tinge of bitter sarcasm.
This _disappoints_ me way more than something like this should. It's so
irrational to care that much.

But they're just so frustratingly dumb.

------
markbnine
I tried to explain to my wife why this story was funny yesterday. It was
hopeless. She simply could not get it. Her sympathies were with the FB users,
"Oh yeah. Facebook is constantly changing their interface. It drives me nuts
too." Huh?

A few weeks ago, she really helped me understand this gap when she said, "I
used to use email, now I use Facebook." I desperately wanted to explain the
difference between a protocol and a web app, but then thought, why? She does
not care. For her, FB is simply email plus.

------
mbrubeck
I think it's a mistake to generalize from those RWW commenters to "normal
users." Of the millions of people who logged on to Facebook yesterday, many
thousands probably got there via Google, and _fewer than fifty_ ended up
commenting on that post (though there were probably many more who clicked the
post but didn't comment). The commenters are not normal computer users; they
are a very aggressively filtered 99.999th percentile of the users who have the
most trouble navigating the web.

------
sjs382
And this is why phishing actually works...

~~~
slig
This also shows that the phishing page doesn't even have to look like the
original page. An username and a password field would do the trick.

~~~
seiji
As long as you have google referral juice.

------
CoryMathews
This is the funniest story I have read in such a long time. If you didn't
believe it before believe it now. People are idiots.

------
csomar
Those users generally don't pay, they are interested in wasting the rest of
their time on the Internet and will run quickly from your site.

However, developers and techies have the money and will pay for great services
you build (if it makes them more productive or help them handle awkward
tasks).

~~~
steveklabnik
I don't know. As sjs382 says above you, "normal" people are the reason that
phishing works. Or spam still happens.

It's also about market, right? Even if 10% of non technologically inclined
people buy something, it's probably more than if 50% of the techies did.

Also, these people are a great reminder of why the iPad is going to sell like
hotcakes.

~~~
orangecat
The iPad wouldn't have helped these people. They can obviously launch a
browser successfully, but having done that they have no clue that there are
sites other than Google and Facebook. Unless Apple's next brilliant innovation
is to remove Safari's URL bar and have giant buttons mapped to the top 10
sites. And no you can't configure them, only geeks would want to do that...

~~~
Lazlo_Nibble
The iPad is perfect for these people. They'll just download "Facebook",
"Google" and "Amazon" from the App Store and never even _open_ Safari.

