I pay all of our bills through our Credit Union’s online bill payer. It’s always been extremely easy and I liked the fact that I would automatically see the balance and the available balance even though the payments hadn’t batched out yet. A while back, they started sending me emails about how they were going to upgrade the service and really “enhance” my bill paying experience. They finally made the change and I can’t stand it. It’s not difficult, but I get no confirmation that payments have been processed. I have to click submit payments, which I have to scroll all the way to the top of the page to do and then scroll all the way down the page to see that it still says they are pending. I’m sure I sound like a crazy person right now, but imo, a notice that says payments have been submitted would be helpful because all I see is that they are pending. I don’t want to click submit again because my dumb luck, they will take the funds out twice. Have you had any experiences recently where you’ve thought to yourself, it wasn’t broke, why the hell did they fix it? Any businesses try to enhance your experience and just give you a headache instead?
Two words: Google News.
Google Maps
OP: as to what happened they probably switched to another company to provide the online bill payer–who has different software and software interface–and probably saved a few buck in doing this!!!
Flashlights used to be simple: on or off.
Now you need an instruction book if you hand your flashlight to your friend.
Yes, google maps! My husband said, obviously it’s easier for them, it just makes things a pain in the ass for you. I’m sure it’s saving them a few dollars.
Every update and new operating system Windows and Apple put out.
My experience too. There are two kinds of upgrades. One is for security and may or may not be visible to the user. The second kind is where some programmer says, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do X?” and convinces his manager to do it. For some, it might be cool, but for the rest of us? My first cell phone did only phone calls. It had an address book that was easy to program and essentially had no instructions; nor did it need them. My most recent one is a total mystery to me. I have not been able to even program the address book. In fact, it is sometimes hard to coerce it to even make a phone call. Texting is beyond me. If only the first company had not exited the Canadian market.
Win-XP was the most functional version as far as I am concerned. It has been downhill from there. My Win-10 is mostly a mystery. Yesterday a box opened on my desktop that claimed my sound system needed work. The box could not be closed, minimized or anything else. And it stayed firmly on top of everything. The task manager didn’t show it as an active program. Rebooting fixed it, fortunately.
What kind of flashlights are you using? All four flashlights in the house have two settings. Well, one might have a low-high-off setting.
Yes, some upgrades I’ve had to do on my iPad because Apple consistently sends me pop up reminders if I don’t have not enhanced my usage, in fact I just don’t like some of them at all.
Answer: To make it more salable to a gullible marketplace. In other words, for the same reason that anything else exists.
I’ve noticed that technology is never used to reduce the price of existing product, but only to enhance a product at constant price. When my ISP made high speed internet available, they offered it at the same price. But would never offer same speed at a lower price.
Technological advance offers more product at constant price, rather than same product at lower price. Just as the fundamental beauty of the simple machine (e.g. wheel) was not used to produce constant output from less work, but to produce more output from constant work. Output being the coefficient of profit for the owners of the machine, holding sway over the powerless workers and their futile desire for leisure.
Here is one as an example. TEN-TAP® Programming for Flexible Lighting Options With these sort of flashlights I just keep fast-clicking and slow-clicking until I get the mode I want because they don’t have any sort of interface on them except one button and I’m not breaking out the manual every time I use a damn flashlight. Sort of annoying.
I frequently use microsoftonline to get access to my work email over the web. It’s OK – not great. But lately, it’s been popping up a notification “We’ve improved the login experience – give it a try.” And I’m reluctant to give it a try because anyone who refers to logging in as an “experience” has almost certainly broken it in ways that normal minds can’t even contemplate. (Remember, this is the company that thought completely redesigning the interfaces and removing, for example, the Start button that literally 100’s of millions of people used every day would be a good idea.)
Yeah, but that flashlight is specifically marketed as programmable, so why would someone even buy it if they just want a basic flashlight, which would be about 99% of the other flashlights available.
I have flashlights aplenty and they all have one button, three settings. God forbid I hand one to someone, they become incapable of using it and cycle through the settings a few times before they aim it where I want them to. It turns adult people into children.
On another note, needlessly complicated stuff… Firefox’s bookmark management.
“If it ain’t broke, fix it until it is!”
One phenomenon I’ve noticed in a 35-year career is that when a new “leader” steps up, they have to meddle with something so that they can leave their mark on the enterprise. Even if they inherited a perfectly stable, well-oiled, smoothly functioning affair, it can be made better–by having his (or her, this is gender neutral) stamp on it.
So a perfectly good office workflow is rejiggered to include unnecessary participants. Or the process is made MOAR FASTAR!!! by dropping important steps. Or some other kind of batshit insanity, which makes everything objectively worse, but still somehow better because NOW it has the new leader’s buttprints all over it.
ETA: In other words, no one ever got promoted by leaving well enough alone.