Needy Programs


đź”— a linked post to tonsky.me » — originally shared here on

ls is a good program. ls is a tool. It does what I need it to do and stays quiet otherwise. I use it; it doesn’t use me. That’s a good, healthy relationship.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have services. Programs that constantly update. Programs that have news, that “keep you informed”. Programs that need something from you all the time. Programs that update Terms of Service just to remind you of themselves.

Programs that have their own agenda and that are trying to make it yours, too. Programs that want you to think about them. Programs that think they are entitled to a part of your attention. “Pick me” programs.

And you know what? Fuck these programs. Give me back my computer.

I wanted to treat my son last night to some new Minecraft content.1 So I grabbed his switch to charge up whatever the in-app currency is. Mine coins?

Before I could do that, though, I had to create a Microsoft account for him.

Why?!

I’ll spare you the details, but it took a total of 16 emails just to authenticate and establish accounts for him, my daughter, and myself.

I had to abandon the idea of buying credits through the official Microsoft store because it blocked my credit card after the first purchase.2 I ended up buying digital Minecraft gift cards through Best Buy, but couldn’t redeem them in the switch app because they only worked on xbox.com?

What the hell guys, I just want my kid to be able to play SpongeBob on his switch! It was, literally not joking, a 2.5 hour cavalcade of the worst UX interactions I’ve encountered in years.

Remember when it used to take substantially less than two and a half hours to bike to Best Buy, buy a disk, and start jamming?

I agree with Niki here. I’m gonna start purging my 1Password accounts and deleting everything I can everywhere I can. I’m done signing up for stuff and being tracked and getting almost nothing in return while companies get to hold onto my info in perpetuity and use it basically however they see fit.

And thanks to vibe coding, I can build my own software that does exactly what I want without needing an account.3

  1. Anything to keep him off Roblox. Good lord, is there a needier program than that one? ↩

  2. lmao at my bank being like “you’re not a Microsoft boi, denied.” Good bank. ↩

  3. as soon as I buy a dedicated machine to run LLMs locally, then I won’t need an OpenAI account either. ↩

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