>The real answer is to separate dataset (aka community) from software (aka policy).
The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience - and the reason those have become so popular is because believing you could make a product without feedback from how your users wanted to use it turned out to be a much worse approach.
Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software. Designing something for end users involves pruning choice paths.
Every paradigm carries inherent biases, but if you simply present it as-is you're at least not exacerbating them. Once you go down the road of "optimizing", you're moving away from neutrality.
> The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience
Um, analytics are a large part of what is feeding this trend of opinionated software that pushes users into behaving certain ways. Analytics optimizes for the company's goals - the users' goals can only be subservient to that.
> Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software
You're shoehorning my argument in order to use an old ignorant put down of Free software. Yes, Free software has been outpolished by surveillance as a service - invasive control is inherently more lucrative, attracting capital. Now that centralized services are moving from "acquisition" to "imposition", their downsides are becoming a lot more apparent.
When the community is bundled with the software, Melcalfe's law restricts competition between softwares - likely leading to two attractors, the most popular option and the fed-up dissenters.
While not being an ubermensch programmer means that you cannot make your own software that perfectly reflects your preferences (ie nobody can), the point is being able to choose between a plurality of competing software options that are better able to match them.
Then what is?
>The real answer is to separate dataset (aka community) from software (aka policy).
The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience - and the reason those have become so popular is because believing you could make a product without feedback from how your users wanted to use it turned out to be a much worse approach.
Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software. Designing something for end users involves pruning choice paths.