Since 2010
Could this have been Google’s plan all along? Create a web browser and use it to combat the use of content blockers? Block some annoying ads, allow basic content blockers, and block any other form of content blocking to make sure that Google’s advertising business improves again?
Yeah, no shit.
This is a depressing read. There’s no point in adding my own comments, because the middle section of this article reflects my feelings much more eloquently than I can:
I root for Firefox’s success. I have been doing so since they made the first crack in Microsoft’s IE dominance and have been doing ever since. Not because I think they have the best browser, instead because of sentimental reasons: they are the only independent browser, guardians of an open, shared web. They have superior, human values compared to the rest. I want them to do well.
Increasingly I’m seeing sites, code experiments, all kinds of things not working well or not working at all in Firefox. And nobody cares. The behavior of seeing Firefox as an unimportant browser is slowly normalized. The question of whether Firefox is relevant is already answered: it isn’t. The only question is how irrelevant it will become.
The sad, sad kicker:
When choosing between convenience and principles, most people pick convenience.
Another unnecessarily confusing sign on one of Melbourne’s trams. The awkward placement of the comma makes this read like you don’t need to touch off in order to touch on. In my internal voice it sounds like “Hey remember! To touch on you don’t need to touch off.”
What it’s trying to say is that you must always touch on, but you don’t need to touch off. It could be rewritten in any number of ways to make that much clearer. Split up the two actions:
“Remember to touch on. You don’t need to touch off.”
Or swap it around:
“Remember, you don’t need to touch off, but you do need to touch on.”
Or something a bit more conversational:
“Remember to touch on, but you don’t need to touch off.”
Maybe it’s not just the comma - it’s the use of the word “remember” as well. What about this which forgoes friendliness for clarity:
“Always touch on. You don’t need to touch off.”
I dunno. I still maintain that all of this would go away if myki was fixed so that the instruction simply becomes “Always touch on. Always touch off”. Maybe we’ll get an overhaul when the new Metro Tunnel stations are added…?
This post from the maker of Feedbin makes me happy to have been a paying customer for almost 4 years.