I agree with every word of this. Scream it from the rooftops. https://www.jonoalderson.com/conjecture/javascript-broke-the-web-and-called-it-progress/
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"somewhere along the way, we started building websites for developers, not for users."
I think that's part of a more general problem, not just for websites but for technology in society more broadly.
For some reason it is assumed that as technology evolves, users get further away from being in control. Power moves away from users, to those building the tech.
I think that's wrong, it does not have to be that way. It is possible (and necessary) to improve tech without harming users.
@eliasr As a dev, I disagree.
Little of what is made for users are controlled by devs, we get a task and we solve it according to specs.
We devs build the tech, but we do it on commission from those that pay us.The control is in their hands.
As a tech / dev person though, it is increasingly frustrating to see that people are ok with letting tech become more and more important in their lives, while insisting that they should be allowed to remain ignorant as to how it works.
This is when power REALLY moves away from users.
"If you want to have control over tech, you need to learn a bit more about it."
"Easy for you to say, techy! Not all of us can learn about tech, it is not like we work with it every day like you do!"
"You... use a computer 10 hours a day!!"
There is no way to have tech be as simple as people want it to be, without outsourcing the complexity to someone that charges you for it.
Like Apple.
This is when control is lost.
@deane