Post #2765700

2026-05-21 19:27 UTC

When I was growing up, we had operating systems that exposed a lot of the technical details about their inner workings, and websites that let us use code to customize them, like MySpace and Geocities. UX designers in tech have since optimized away most of the stuff that allowed and encouraged people to learn to use technology and now people get confused by files and browser tabs. And as the knowledge shrinks, more and more things have to be simplified away. I only ever see it as a one way road.

Replies (6)

@odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange 2026-05-21 19:29

@Gargron@mastodon.social that's because you're technically proficient.

Open ##3143595
@z428@social.lol 2026-05-21 19:30

@Gargron@mastodon.social Yes, but it's also worth considering that, by today, there are people using this kind of technology that, three decades earlier, weren't still nowhere near tools more technologically complex than a TV set or a radio receiver....🙈

Open ##3143648
@gekitsu@toot.cat 2026-05-21 19:31

@Gargron@mastodon.social it’s such a bad thing to conflate lowering barrier of entry with lowering permissible skill ceiling. :( hell yes to making it easier to start doing things! but this systematic deskilling of people is such a harmful thing.

Open ##3143649
@budin@mastodon.uy 2026-05-21 19:32

@Gargron@mastodon.social For me it was Neopets!

Open ##3143651
@tezoatlipoca@mas.to 2026-05-21 19:33

@Gargron@mastodon.social So.... does this mean custom native Mastodon UI css and scripting on a per-user, or per-instance basis will be officially supported sometime?

Open ##3143653
@zackwhittaker@mastodon.social 2026-05-21 19:34

@Gargron@mastodon.social i agree. i feel like the ability to customize, tinker, modify, edit... even hack (gently) websites and web apps especially has been taken away over the past 10-15 years of so. editing the live HTML of a Myspace page back in the 2000s almost feels impossible without all of the guardrails put in place today. it was actually fun to grow up on the internet and with computers during the 90s and 00s!

Open ##3143654