I’ll get right into it, I think most app subscriptions shouldn’t exist.
Not because I have a vendetta against subscriptions, but because in most cases, they are used as a substitute. They are used as a mask to hide the lack of real upgrade pricing.
When a developer feels like they need to have a continuous stream of money coming in, for them to work on and improve an app, it’s because they want security to allow them to continue. They want reassurance that they won’t be wasting time.
A more honest solution would be that if you work on a major update to an app, that you could make it available alongside an upgrade price.
It then gives agency to the user, where they can make a decision on whether they want to pay for an upgrade. Sometimes an app works for you, and there’s no extra value to be gained. Other users may appreciate the increase in functionality and would be willing to pay for it.
It also assures the developer that they can work on an upgraded version of their app, and not have it lose them time or money. From both existing users upgrading, and from the potential of new users.
If I suddenly announced that Text Case was moving to a subscription model, I expect a lot of people wouldn’t be best pleased. Sure, I could make the argument that this would come with regular updates, but what if someone is fine with the app how it is? Why would you need to pay for something you don’t want?
But at the same time, if I spent months working on a whole new version of the app, I’d feel a bit weird releasing it to everyone as a free update. But if I could make it both the new default version for new customers and offer it to existing users at a much smaller upgrade price, that would make a lot more sense.
I’ve had this thought for quite some time, and it’s that most websites don’t need to be served dynamically. For example, most blogs that are powered by WordPress or Ghost will dynamically fetch the relevant content and build the page every time a visitor visits a URL1.
There’s nothing stopping sites from being built dynamically, using centrally stored content, and various templates that can be put together to build a complex website. It should just happen once, and then the generated static content can be efficiently served again and again, until the source content changes, and triggers it to be rebuilt.
This is much more relevant for blogs since the content on the page doesn’t change, except for possibly a web font, or a JavaScript snippet for analytics or an advert. However, these are usually externally sourced, and won’t affect the static HTML code that can be served to your users2.
This may sound a bit ironic, since my blog currently runs on Ghost, and serves content dynamically3. Although, I am working towards a solution for that, by building my own static site generator, Arbok.
Yes, I’m sure some people have a caching mechanism installed, but I wouldn’t say it’s everyone, and it really masks a problem rather than fixing one. ↩︎
Another benefit of this, is that you can bundle together resources into a final .html file, such as any CSS styles. Which reduces the number of requests the browser needs to make when visiting your page. ↩︎
Although if you have a look at your browsers web inspector, you’ll find that I’ve already done some work to reduce the size of my website. ↩︎
I was scrolling on my phone on the commute home today, and I came across someone talking about how you could subscribe to their content for a certain price. I can’t remember where I saw it, or who posted it—not that it matters—but it certainly sparked a few chain reactions in my brain.
For context, either I didn’t read it fully, or what this “content” was, wasn’t explained to me. I can’t quite put into words what my first thoughts were, but I couldn’t understand the value proposition at all. One thing that flashed across my mind was that this was just someone asking for money and that they were probably going to create this “content” no matter what. So why would someone need to pay a subscription?
I then started putting it into the context of a blog or newsletter to try and understand my thoughts a little better. I kept coming back to the idea that we’re all just saying things. Which surely isn’t worth anyone’s money? But then maybe there is value behind it. Otherwise, how do you explain blogs, newsletters, podcasts, etc? There’s clearly a desire for the opinions and viewpoints of other people, and maybe that’s worth money to some people.
It made me think about what I share on my blog. Sometimes I wonder if my blog should contain small fleeting thoughts, my review of a product, or a deeply thought-out essay on a topic. Is this just me “creating content” and hoping someone throws a bit of money in my direction? I don’t think so.
I like to think that my blog is just an online representation of myself, my thoughts, opinions, and maybe also just things that I think others may find interesting.
So why would people read my blog?
Well, I guess it’s for the same reason that I follow people on Mastodon, why I subscribe to people on YouTube, and why I read so many blogs.
Most of the “content” I consume seems to stem from people going onto the internet to either express their thoughts or share their perspectives. That all seems rather simplistic, but I think it’s true.
Does that mean a blog is someone just saying things on the internet? I think that’s what I do. I think it’s what other people do as well. And I think I like it.
Now on to more current thoughts, is this blog post, me talking to myself, or am I talking to the internet? I’m not sure. But if you’ve read this far, then you have just caught a small glimpse into what goes on inside my head.
I have a few life goals written down, where I think if I would achieve them, would signify a very satisfying life for myself.
One I would like to share today, is that I would like to not need to set an alarm on a day-to-day basis. I want to be able to wake up naturally, and go about my day as I see fit.
The biggest and most obvious hinderance to me achieving this goal is my day job. And for most people attempting to achieve something similar, where they have more control over their day, this problem would probably be the same.
The essence of the goal is mostly based on having control over my own timetable, but at the same time, I don’t want this to mean that I can’t work. I’m happy working, but I want to do it on my own time. Maybe that’s expecting too much, but I have a feeling that many people would like to control their day a little more.
This actually came back into my head recently with the news that the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, and also based on commentary from LD Stephens, and Mike Rockwell.
But the idea that triggered it the most was from LD Stephens, where he mentioned how it would more negatively affect the northern states, with darker mornings in the winter months. While I won’t pretend to understand the geography of the U.S. or the opinions of its citizens, it is interesting to me that even inside a time zone, not everyone experiences the same day. I haven’t quite figured out if I think this is a problem, or if it’s just a situation that we have to get on with. But intriguing to me nonetheless.
Where this ties in to my idea about controlling your day, is that because timezones are experienced differently based on where you are within that timezone. So while it may say 8 am on everyone’s clocks, maybe in one place the sun has risen, and in another it hasn’t. That’s probably not a big deal to most. But when you add the context of a normal day job starting at roughly the same time, then it has a more visible effect.
I have many questions in my head regarding why we need to start work at a certain time, and why working hours aren’t adjusted on a hyper-local basis. But I guess the answer is mostly that it’s simply easier this way.
When I think about Daylight Savings Time, it does at least attempt to counteract the varying sunset/sunrise times over the year. But I don’t think the “solution” to this is in the concept of time itself, but how we base our lives on it. For example, if you normally start work at 8 am, but now the sun doesn’t rise until 8:45 am, why can’t you just start work at 9 am instead? Why do we adjust time to compensate? I’m guessing because “it’s easier”.
I’m not sure that this would work for everyone, but I think a more flexible approach to working hours would be widely accepted.
Before the pandemic, I started coming into work earlier, starting at 7:30 instead of 8:30. However, while this may seem flexible, I’m pretty sure there would have been a bit of friction if I asked to start at 7:45 instead. It’s also not flexible, as in I have had to agree this new time, I couldn’t have just arrived one day at 7:30.
What, I think, would be a good solution for most people is if your starting time wasn’t fixed. But maybe there’s an hour window, and then your working hours start from whenever you arrived at work. Perhaps one day you woke up 15 minutes late, and therefore arrived “late” to the office. Why treat it as a problem of being late? Why is there not a general acceptance of the fact that you arrived 15 minutes later, and that you will just leave 15 minutes later as a result?
Personally, I think the best solution for people and companies (where the job allows), is if your entire working hours were flexible. For example, you could be contracted to work 8 hours a day, but you are free to fulfil those 8 hours between the hours of 7 am and 9 pm. Maybe one day you have plans later on in the day, so you choose to start at 7 am, and have a short lunch. But another day, you want to go have brunch with friends, so you could start later, or perhaps you just take a long break?
To go even further on this idea, what if the entire week was flexible? What if you could fit in 40 hours of work as you see fit throughout the week?
I think this idea of control, and having your working hours work around you, instead of everyone conforming to the same schedule, would result in a massive feeling of freedom.
While I have personally been working throughout the entire pandemic, I have now done so from home for two full years. I start going back to the office on the week starting 28th March, for 2 days a week. And I imagine a lot more people will be starting to go back to the office as well, if they haven’t done so already. It will certainly be very fascinating to see what cultural changes have happened over the period of the pandemic, specifically regarding commuting into a city to work after working from home for two years. Especially since it appears that people are at least attempting to “go back to normal”.
I guess the question is, “what is normal now?”. A while ago everyone was predicting significant changes to how people work, how they socialise, and their entire priorities and attitudes towards their lifestyles. But surely at some point we’ve got to see this take place? Or has it already happened, and we’ve already accepted it as normal?
I’ve had enough thoughts on this idea to span a short book, but I had a moment today where I was just occupied with my thoughts, and I started contemplating using an iPhone 5 again.
A quick bit of a context: the iPhone 5 is my favourite phone to have existed, and I’m also a fan (nostalgically) of older technology.
Whenever I think about an older product like the iPhone 5, or whatever old product or service that I used in the past, I always end up watching YouTube videos like “Does X work in 2022?”.
After going through a moment of nostalgia, I’m always left with the thought that “of course it should work”. Older products don’t magically stop working when newer versions come out. In the same way that if you buy a Game Boy Colour now, and Pokémon Yellow, you’ll have the same experience as you would have done 20 years ago.
Surely as long as the hardware of a product remains functional, and any software updates keep the product working as expected, then technology should theoretically last forever?
When the question whether an older product or technology is still viable in a certain moment, if the need/purpose is still the same, then it is as suitable and capable as it was originally.
Of course, there are more specific arguments that could be made against this. For example, if you have an old iPhone and update it to the most modern version of iOS, while you may have newer features, your device is most likely going to run slower.
There’s a potential argument here that keeping software updates isn’t always the best way to keep something working for a long period of time. But I’ll save that thought for another day.
All I’m trying to say, is that when you think about older products, their capabilities aren’t usually what has changed. They can most likely perform the same function as they did originally. But what has changed is your expectations of what a certain product should provide.
My answer to every “Can you still use X in 2022?” question, is that if your needs have not changed and there aren’t any software compatibility issues, then of course you can.
It’s getting close to the time where I think companies will be asking more and more of their employees to migrated back to office life. This has made me wonder what I personally expect will happen in regard to my own situation, and also what I’m hoping for, and willing to settle for.
Back in February this year, I wrote a post entailing reasons why I didn’t want to return to the office. I’d say that my feelings haven’t changed in that regard. But at the same time, there are aspects of office life that I wouldn’t mind getting back. Although I’m not sure how realistic those actually are.
As for my current work situation, I’m still working from home full-time, having started back in March 2019. The company I work for have started talking about flexible working in the future, although these plans were pushed back recently, as it was planned to be in action around September. But, it did seem that at that point, the balance was seemingly going to be a pretty even split of working at home and in the office.
Right now, my office is open for people to go in and has been for a few months. Except, it’s not open as usual (as you might expect). Instead, only half of our floors are open in the building, and are at a maximum 50% capacity, along with no one having an assigned desk.
If you want to go into the office, you need to book a slot online, and in the morning you have to get your personal items from a locker, pick up a fresh mouse and keyboard, and take everything to your desk.
Once you’re set up at your desk, that’s it for the rest of the day. Because most likely your teammates aren’t even in the building, let alone sat anywhere near you. So you’re basically remote-working from the office. Especially as meetings will continue to require a video call.
That situation is precisely why I haven’t returned to the office at all. Because the value I see in being in an office is the fact that your team is sat together, you can have quick discussions, a meeting can happen in person around a whiteboard, and you can generally socialise with other colleagues. But right now, none of these benefits are possible. And I’m starting to think that while I am open to returning to the office unless most people are more-or-less working from the office full-time, it’s not going to be the same.
For example, my ideal balance is that I work from the office 1 or 2 days a week and the rest from home. But what happens when each member of the team does the same and chooses different days to come in?
If a majority of the team are working most of the time from home, then is it reasonable to expect a permanent desk? Because if not, then you could be spread out all over the office. This means back to everyone sat at a desk connecting to a video call. So you may as well be sat at home.
Because of those reasons, I think a more realistic balance is that most people work 3 or more days in the office if we are to expect a return to normal. Otherwise, I’m not too sure what the benefits of returning would be.
What I think will happen is that some people will choose to go back, pretty much full-time, but it will depend on their role. For example, people on the phone all day might prefer to be in the office, whereas developers like myself will probably choose to stay at home. So I’m a bit pessimistic whether office life will ever actually be normal for me again.
Instead, I think that while companies are offering either flexible or completely remote working, then others will be pressured into doing the same thing. And to be honest, if the company I work at weren’t flexible in letting me work from home enough, then I’d probably look to move somewhere else.
I guess there’s only one way to find out, and that will be to simply wait. But I’m curious to see what will happen to office working over the long-term. And if it will have any effect on house prices, office locations, and cities in general, if they aren’t receiving the same level of footfall as they were before the pandemic.
Note: These are raw thoughts and not a PhD thesis, and therefore should be treated as such.
In my opinion, social media networks like Twitter, Instagram, and to some extent other microblogging platforms, are underutilised and I think we could gain so much more from using them.
In short, I think that social networks are more enjoyable for everyone when people share everyday life, opinions, ideas, life updates, progress, and real experiences.
I’ve noticed a few things that I think are misconceptions on how we should treat social media:
Every photo needs to be perfect. The background can’t be distracting, you must be in an amazing location, with no mess, and you must also be a professional photographer.
Your thoughts need to fit within the expectations of others.
If you do not provide context, then it is wise to assume the worst possible scenario.
You must treat yourself as a brand.
Sharing a curated feed of your best moments makes you interesting.
While I don’t believe I’m the messiah brought to Earth to fix every problem with social networks, there are a few things that I think we forget when it comes to using them:
We are all real people.
Our lives in most caress are drastically different to what we share online.
Real-life is what other people can relate to.
It’s always seemed fascinating to me how we all seem to understand that social media doesn’t represent real life, but we still get caught up in it. It’s like we’re all wilful subscribers to an alternate reality, where we get triggered by purposefully emotive headlines, opinions that differ from our own, and from people that we do not know.
But imagine if we used social networks to share our real-life experiences. We all have them. We can all see the distinction between what happens in real life and what appears on social media.
I think that is where Micro.blog has felt different to platforms like Twitter for me. In a sense, it feels slower, but at the same time, it feels like you are connecting with real people. Whereas when I use Twitter, most of the time it feels like I’m interacting with an online account rather than the person behind it.
I’ve definitely fallen into the trap before, where I’ve used Twitter as a place to share perfect photos, links to my blog posts, and anything else that can bring external validation. But I think I’m going to try and just use it like a normal person for a while, and see how it goes. Nothing I do is perfect, and it won’t ever become perfect. So the only thing I’d ask is that if you do see me on Twitter, please treat my public posts as coming from a real person, not someone simply out to cause havoc.
Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something change within myself, regarding my opinions on technology, and my preferences on what I’m willing to put up with.
Most of those thought processes stem from the fact that before I used an Apple device, I was really into PCs, whether it was building them, seeing the latest technology, or just tinkering with them. But after I switched to a Mac, it felt like it wasn’t a device for tinkering, rather it was an off-the-shelf product that you used to get things done.
I don’t mean this to be an attack on Apple products, or just to be purely negative about them, because I think they’re some of the best technology products that exist today. But just like every other product, they come with their own pros and cons.
For example, I think that macOS is a better operating system than Windows in a usability sense, design, and overall cohesion with the Apple ecosystem. And the same also applies to iOS and iPadOS. However, there are times when I’ve felt like I’ve been wrapped in cotton wool, instead of having real control of my devices. That’s led to my recent thinking on Android phones, and imagining if I could ever make the switch.
These thoughts have been going around my head for a while, and one phrase came to mind yesterday that seems to sum up my overall opinion on technology: “I don’t want nice, I want control”. And whether or not this is the reality, I’ve always felt like the Apple world offers more niceties and a cohesive experience throughout all of their products, and not exactly one that offers an abundance of control to its users.
All of this has led me to very recently (a few days ago), purchasing a PC. I’ll write about that on my blog in more detail soon, but it’s a Windows PC, relatively cheap, which I built myself, and I’m now having some fun playing World of Warcraft at the max settings with a seemingly lack of struggle.
I don’t know if this makes me part of the “PC Master Race” or if I’m actually going to be doing more things in Windows than playing games. But one thing I’m going to be doing from now on is to keep an open mind about technology. Somehow I went from being interesting in technology and computing as a whole to then thinking Apple products are the only ones worth thinking about. Whereas I’m now starting to realise that products are contextual. And that the quality of a product is contextual, to the use case, users familiarity, price, what downsides a user is willing to put up with, etc.
Maybe this just means that I’m now an Apple user with a gaming PC, or maybe it’s the start of a wider appreciation for technology. I guess I’ll just have to find out.
any wild plant that grows in an unwanted place, especially in a garden or field where it prevents the cultivated plants from growing freely
Seems simple enough. Things that appear where you don’t want them to appear.
Except throughout my life, I’ve noticed that here in the UK, “weeds” seem to be a fixed list of plants that people apparently don’t like on their lawn. So really they’re just native plants that sometimes spread relatively easy.
My problem is that the common meaning is seemingly a static list, rather than being subjective to the scenario. For example, in a small garden, you probably won’t want Japanese knotweed growing, as it’s an invasive species that can quickly overtake an area and is difficult to control.
However, I’ve never understood that dandelions, a small plant that produces yellow flowers, looks pretty nice, and is actually edible while also containing quite a few vitamins, is commonly classed as a weed. Whereas the daisy is exempt from the same criticism, even though it is too a small flowering plant that can appear in lawns and spreads relatively easily.
The only thing this has done for me is to further reaffirm my belief that weeds are subjective. But more importantly, that sometimes commonly held opinions (or definitions in this case) might not always apply to you.
For example, when reading a product review, whether it’s an app or a computer, it’s important to remember that a weed to them might not necessarily be a weed to you. So you need to take into consideration any biases that the reviewer might hold themselves, before applying their findings to your situation.
You could also apply to analogy to the common question of whether an iPad can replace your computer. Too many times, the fundamental parts of peoples arguments are what an iPad can do and what a “real computer” can do. And instead, the focus should be on three things:
What can an iPad do?
What do I want to do?
What weeds am I willing to deal with to use an iPad?
You can apply these three things to a lot of decisions, and make them a bit more generic:
What capabilities does X have?
What actions do I want to perform?
What am I willing to put up to perform Y on X?
Often it’s easy to see someone’s posts on social media and to try and apply their experiences and outcomes to your own life, but it’s important to remember subjectivity. And that their decisions could be based on beliefs that are different to your own, and that they may be willing to put up with a different level of “weeds” than you.
So about last night. England lost the Euro 2020 final to Italy. That was hard to take.
But what was worse than the loss, was the racial abuse that some young black English players received after the game. The primary targets were the 3rd, 4th, and 5th penalty takers, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka, who are 23, 21, and 19 years old. Each of them had the courage to step up and take a penalty in a final when the entire country was watching them.
Whatever happened, happened, and Italy beat England 3-2 on penalties.
But what immediately followed were streams of racial abuse on those three players social media accounts. Most of them posted by freshly created accounts, that were created solely to abuse young players that were representing their countries at a major tournament.
And for as many arguments I see and hear about football players “taking the knee” before games, most of them based on being against the BLM organisation itself, and either not agreeing with their politician stances, or just insisting that politics should remain out of sport. Last night was a clear example of why footballers feel that they need to continue with the symbol. Whether or not the gesture is aimed at supporting the BLM organisation itself or a symbol against racism, it’s very much clear that racism well and truly exists within a group of football fans that quickly turn on players after a bad result.
It’s very easy to jump to the opinion that social media accounts should require some form of identification, to try and deter the level of abuse that occurs every day on the platforms. I’m torn because there are a lot of downsides to no longer having anonymity online, but when things like this happen, I start to think is the price that we need to pay? Because something needs to change.
Several organisations and high-profile people have already released statements condemning the abuse, but I’m not sure if they will actually be effective at stopping it from happening again. Sure, it will offer a level of support to the players, but something needs to be implemented so that it’s not that easy to post racial abuse on social networks.
Maybe some will say this is against some kind of free speech rule, but are social media companies not capable of not allowing racist comments to be made? Instead of relying on their reporting tools after such remarks have been posted.
I can only hope that the press that will no doubt be created because of the recent abuse will force the social media companies to start thinking about what else they can do to prevent it from happening in the future.
