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this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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I remember someone saying that and me having a hard time believing it, but I've seen several people say that.
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/1dkeiwz/is_genz_really_this_bad_with_computers/
I can understand some arguments that there's always room to advance UI paradigms, but I have to say that I don't think that cloud-based smartphone UIs are the endgame. If one is going to consume content, okay, fine. Like, as a TV replacement or something, sure. But there's a huge range of software -- including most of what I'd use for "serious" tasks -- out there that doesn't fall into that class, and really doesn't follow that model. Statistics software? Software development? CAD? I guess Microsoft 365 -- which I have not used -- probably has some kind of cloud-based spreadsheet stuff. I haven't used Adobe Creative Cloud, but I assume that it must have some kind of functionality analogous to Photoshop.
kagis
Looks like off-line Photoshop is dead these days, and Adobe shifted to a pure SaaS model:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Creative_Cloud#Criticism
shakes head
Man.
And for that matter, I'd think that a lot of countries might have concerns about dependence on a cloud service. I mean, I would if we were talking about China. I'm not even talking about data security or anything -- what happens if Country A sanctions Country B and all of Country B's users have their data abruptly inaccessible?
I get that Internet connectivity is more-widespread now. But, while I'm handicapped without an Internet connection, because I don't have access to useful online resources, I can still basically do all of the tasks I want to do locally. Having my software unavailable because the backend is unreachable seems really problematic.
This was actually something I found interesting with the brief TikTok shutdown in the US. A lot of creators only had their content in the editing software owned by TikTok or the app itself, meaning they lost access to all of their content.
The biggest risk of cloud only setups is you don't own it.
I wouldn't expect most users to understand how to use it, but has there not been a tiktok downloader made yet? If not that's a good opportunity for someone looking for a project.
I think most of the tools have a way to download content, the issue is no one does or has a system for their backups. Which is the risk with the cloud, you're putting all your eggs in someone elses basket.
I would guess that at least part of the issue there is also that the data isn't all that useful unless it's also exported to some format that other software can read. That format may not capture everything that the native format stores.
In another comment in this thread, I was reading the WP article on Adobe Creative Cloud, which commented on the fact that the format is proprietary. I can set up some "data storage service", and maybe Adobe lets users export their Creative Cloud data there. Maybe users even have local storage.
But...then, what do you do with the data? Suppose I just get a copy of the native format. If nothing other than the software on Adobe's servers can use it, that doesn't help me at all. Maybe you can export the data, export to an open format like a PNG or something, but you probably don't retain everything. Like, I can maybe get my final image out, but I don't get all the project workflow stuff associated with the work I've done. Macros, brushes, stuff broken up into layers, undo history...
I mean, you have to have the ability to use the software to maintain full use of the data, and Adobe's not going to give you that.
You're absolutely right a out data formatting being an issue and something that really does cause vendor lockin.
I would just think content creators would still want archive/backup of the final products (the video itself). For example could you imagine if a movie just disappeared because Adobe or someone shutdown.
The abstraction away of the idea of files and folders is a deliberate user disempowerment strategy by app and mobile OS creators. The underlying concept is that the app owns the data, you don't. It also conceals the fact that use of standard file formats and directory structure conventions were developed to facilitate interoperability: apps come and go, but the data was meant to live on regardless. Of course, vendors want to break interoperability since doing so enables lock-in. Even when the format of the underlying content is standarized, they'll still try to fuck you over by imposing a proprietary metadata standard.
Just another example of enshittification at work.
This is so weird to me. Aren't people at all curious? Like, I would never try to fix a car's engine, but I have a basic understanding of how one works. I wouldn't install a toilet, but I know about J-traps. I wouldn't write my own 3D engine, but I know the basics of how they work.
Files and folder is such a fundamental and basic thing. Where's the basic curiosity?
Honestly, I'm a little surprised that a smartphone user wouldn't have familiarity with the concept of files, setting aside the whole familiarity-with-a-PC thing. Like, I've always had a file manager on my Android smartphone. I mean, ok...most software packages don't require having one browse the file structure on the thing. And many are isolated, don't have permission to touch shared files. Probably a good thing to sandbox apps, helps reduce the impact of malware.
But...I mean, even sandboxed apps can provide file access to the application-private directory on Android. I guess they just mostly don't, if the idea is that they should only be looking at files in application-private storage on-device, or if they're just the front end to a cloud service.
Hmm. I mean, I have GNU/Linux software running in Termux, do stuff like
scpfrom there. A file manager. Open local video files inmpvor in PDF viewers and such. I've a Markdown editor that permits browsing the filesystem. Ditto for an org-mode editor. I've a music player that can browse the filesystem. I've got a directory hierarchy that I've created, though simpler and I don't touch it as much as on the PC.But, I suppose that maybe most apps just don't expose it in their UI. I could see a typical Android user just never using any of the above software. Not having a local PDF viewer or video player seems odd, but I guess someone could just rely wholly on streaming services for video and always open PDFs off the network. I'm not sure that the official YouTube app lets one actually save video files for offline viewing, come to think of it.
I remember being absolutely shocked when trying to view a locally-stored HTML file once that Android-based web browsers apparently didn't permit opening local HTML files, that one had to set up a local webserver (though that may have something to do with the fact that I believe that by default, with Web browser security models, a webpage loaded via the
file://URI scheme has general access to your local filesystem but one talking to a webserver on localhost does not...maybe that was the rationale).Current students generally have horrendous computer literacy. There was only about a 20ish year window where using a computer meant you were forced to become vaguely proficient in how it worked. Toward the end of the 90s into the 2000s plug and play began to work more reliably, then 10 years after that smartphone popularity took off and it's been apps ever since.
Students in high school this year were born from ~2007-2011. Most of them probably had a smartphone before a computer, if they even had the latter at all.
First people didn't really understand computers, so we taught about them to children - back in late 90's when I was in school, we had a few school years of dedicated computer classes every week.
People then started to assume kids just "know" computers ("digital native" and all that) and we stopped teaching them because hey, they know it already.
And now we are suddenly surprised that kids don't know how to use computers.
Even university students studying computer science don't have this basic knowledge anymore.
It's a sample of 1, but we hired a young guy with a CS Master's degree. I told him in polite ways that he should not use ChatGPT and his code sucked. When he was told to fix something, he rewrote it completely with a new prompt instead of understanding bugs. He didn't last more than 2 months.
Ms 365 just assumes that your company has a Ms azure cloud solution, exchange server or just defaults to onedrive. You have to wrestle the software into giving you a local storage folder browser when picking the place to save a new document to. It's frustrating.
@dustyData Oh my gosh. I see this every single day at work. So many people have no idea where any of their documents are saved, until they can’t find them. I’ll be honest, I use a lot of streaming services for music as well, but I think I might actually go back to simply buying music. Who knows. Call me old-fashioned and only 35 years old, but I still see a point in local storage in traditional desktop type software. There’s not enough of it around here.
Godamn this made my job feel secure
I think the first filesystems had flat layout (no directories), but also had different file types for a library, an executable, a plaintext file. Then there were filesystems where directories could only list files, not other directories.
Slowly and gradually over time they evolved to the abstractions of directories listing files and other directories. I think in early Unix even a directory was a usual file, just differently interpreted.
Now, instead of teaching clueless people they've made a whole culture of computing for clueless people only, unfit for proper usage.
One might see how representation of something like a lent of objects is the flat layout again. At some point it doesn't matter that there's a normal filesystem under it, or something.
One might also see how using tags to somewhat organize objects into another lent is similar to a two-level layout, where a directory can only list files.
How would one know if they want to use computers seriously if they haven't been taught, don't know where to start teaching themselves, probably have, mild or not, executive dysfunction (a lot of conditions) and, if put in the right situation, would be very capable and interested, but in the wrong situation just can't learn a single thing?
That was me, I could only reduce distractions and non-transparency after moving to Linux (and then OpenBSD, and then FreeBSD) with obscure WMs and setups. I'm born in 1996, so I had it easier.
That is true for MS-DOS 1.0. But Unix had a tree structured directory system from the very beginning (early 1970s). And the directory listing command "ls" was basically the same in the first Unix 50 years ago as it is in modern Linux.
I meant - before Unix.
I owned Adobe CS 4. CS 5 and 6 had nothing new I needed. When my OS no longer supported CS 4, I purchased Affinity Suite; it still works great with no subscription or cloud hosting.
Back when the iTunes Music Store still existed, I took advantage of their feature to convert my library of audio to digitally mastered DRM-free 256 bit AAC. All my recordings of tapes and LPs replaced by professionally remastered tracks. Since then, I’ve supplemented with tracks purchased directly from the bands I’m interested in, plus some lower value stuff from YouTube.
In fact, the only cloud service I depend on is NextCloud, which I host myself, and which lives behind a VPN.
I run my own JellyFin server with all my DVD rips hosted on it. That’s a large part of my streaming video that I’d want to watch more than once.
Probably not a huge number of people do what I do, but enough to keep people employed who still make products you download once and enjoy forever.
I hear you for sure. I very much prefer local software and saved files local as well. The problem is there's more money to be made doing it the other way. Unless it's FOSS you can pretty much count on the company to follow the money.