It's literally not forced. It's asked as default to enable the PTT functionality.
They /could/ wait to make that request only after someone chooses the PTT option, but given they don't even communicate properly about why this dialog appears -- over 3 years after its introduction -- it's unlikely they're going to change it.
Would you rather they remove PTT functionality (which can reduce accessibility for some users), or that macOS didn't have such fine permissions? -- because that's the only way you're going to have that dialog go away...
If you don't trust the app or the "supply chain," don't use it. There are plenty FLOSS apps out there which have completely free client- and server-side source code you can review at your leisure, nobody is "forcing" you to use Discord.
It being installed without user consent is pretty shitty, but this whole time I was under the impression that it was enabled by default, which is insane.
If it wasn't in fact enabled, it's still dumb, but to me a misstep in respecting the user and not a complete breach of trust.
I think I've written this before, but: this feature would go nowhere if it was disabled by default. If you want to know whether mainstream users will or will not like it, you can't stick it in some obscure alpha (they'll never test it), and you can't make it optional (only a few percent will ever come across the tick box at all).
So yeah, I don't like this feature either (for all the reasons RMS pointed out), but I don't see how otherwise they could have tested it. Maybe not a failure of judgement then, but rather choosing innovation over privacy?
(Note the 12.10 betas also had all these queries going over the network in plain text... so I kind of see the whole experiment as taking the "move fast and break things" mantra taken to the extreme)
Yep, they might as well hire a lawyer to defend their bad decisions based on the exact wording of settings.
Nobody cares if the option doesn't literally imply it'll never "nudge" the user, I'd be annoyed regardless. And it's the only option visible to normal users.
I think the assertion is one of the tyranny of the default. If they are not blocked by default, then for the majority of users, the option effectively does not exist, since they will not proactively look for such a setting.
this seems like a pretty silly criticism - you have a feature that is both gated behind a per-site permission prompt and that has an option to globally turn it off, and you're still grumpy that it exists?
if you don't like it turn it off. arguing that things shouldn't exist just because you choose not to use them is pretty selfish.
What timing! I’ve been annoyed by this for a while and just yesterday wrote IT about the absurd permission request to “Connect” and asking for some way to turn it off. Based on this post I think I know what their answer will be.
I understand there was a reason for this decision. But why can't the product - from time to time - prompt the user to ask about a particular setting? Worst case add a "don't show me this again" checkbox.
Am I misunderstanding something or couldn't this just be made an optional setting?
So users can lockdown the ability to install stuff if they want without overcoming various hurdles (maybe allow users to add customised message so if a user tries to do it a message will pop-up saying "Your Son/Daughter/whoever has said you should never disable this! Call them before doing this if someone has asked you to!").
I feel like there is so many options/info hidden from consumers about their devices that really shouldn't be. And preventing it or hiding it only really serves the companies themselves, not the end user.
Doing this without actually bothering to let people know in an up-front, opt-in way certainly doesn't make the user experience better. While there's some conceivable value to the feature, turning it on without even letting users know is pretty bullshit and you're perturbing a lot of electrons in this thread with your defense of a really shitty default behavior.
That’s very interesting but we aren’t designing the web around your personal set of preferences so I don’t know if it’s particularly relevant to the conversation.
I’m sure when it arrives like other APIs that require certain permissions you will be able to disable it and live in peace.
Neither are being done here. An email explaining the setting is one thing. Enabling the setting for the users is blatant disrespect. You and your team of PMs are destroying Google's opportunities with our users by forcing changes like this and pushing them over the edge.
They /could/ wait to make that request only after someone chooses the PTT option, but given they don't even communicate properly about why this dialog appears -- over 3 years after its introduction -- it's unlikely they're going to change it.
Would you rather they remove PTT functionality (which can reduce accessibility for some users), or that macOS didn't have such fine permissions? -- because that's the only way you're going to have that dialog go away...
If you don't trust the app or the "supply chain," don't use it. There are plenty FLOSS apps out there which have completely free client- and server-side source code you can review at your leisure, nobody is "forcing" you to use Discord.
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