That post really does sum it up, and gets to the issue quite efficiently!
If, for example, a user is easily allowed to convert their movie library to a platform agnostic file format, it would lower their costs associated with leaving the plantation. Their masters simply cannot allow this.
This, especially, feels very accurate. Spotify, for example, has a specific filetype that makes it nearly impossible to actually save any music to your own computer. Now, it is obviously a streaming service, but some of the things on there can’t be found elsewhere and as such ought to be preserved etc etc. That’s it’s own sidetrack.
Compared to using other services with actual files and such, you don’t actually learn anything aside from, as mentioned, how to navigate Spotify. What a waste, on some level. Thanks for linking the article!
I’m coming into this conversation way late and I apologize if this has been mentioned.
How about building/writing helpful websites: tech guides, how to, FAQs, glossaries of tech terms, etc.? This combines your love of webweaving with your personal expertise on the subject. Plus it helps others and the bonus to others is you are not trying to sell visitors anything or drown them in advertising. Win - win.
Sure there are guides and posts on the web already but there cannot be too many, written for all skill levels. You cannot get too basic or too high level. Plus each writers voice is different, their skills are different. This kind of free learning is exactly what the web is for IMHO.
This is my biggest gripe with the current trend of everything being a web interface now. There is no consistency between user interfaces now, so learning how to navigate Spotify doesn’t help you navigate YouTube Music or Discord (for example). When everything was a desktop application, even software made for two completely different purposes would have common UI elements, which makes learning how to navigate your computer much easier.
This is such a good point! I am all for knowledge and skills that are transferable. I wonder if it would be possible to make a web browser where the navigation of each web interface is generalized into a pattern of one’s own choosing so that navigation across multiple websites becomes obvious, or at least more intuitive…Something like a window manager, but with websites…
Honestly, I’m quite tired of everything becoming a subscription service, utilizing DRM with telemetry, etc. Those seem to be a big factor in why desktop applications have started to disappear and everything needs to be constantly connected to the Internet in some way.
I never expect someone to learn something just for the sake of learning it - people learn things when they want to do things. It’s how I got started with computers, just trying to get things done and picking up some new tricks every day. No one starts editing their Windows registry because they’re curious about the Windows registry - they want to change the text on the start button to a dirty word to horrify and confuse their parents.
If you show people how to torrent to keep their streaming catalogues safe, edit a PDF, or write little basic bash thing to do things like resize photos and convert videos, in the end most of them will want to know how to do it all themselves because it makes their lives a little easier.
I’ve got friends getting more computer savvy ever since I showed them how to use the Internet Archive to browse dead websites, colleagues in the communication department at my institution learning HTML because the CMS for the website is limited and as soon as you teach someone how to float an image or auto-margin a div, they can’t stop picking up new stuff.
I think especially in this era of walled gardens, people can more easily be dazzled with DIY solutions and it can put them on a path to greater computer literacy.
This is a really interesting article thank you for sharing! It puts to words something that’s bothered me for a while now. I thought I was just getting dumber lmao- ‘as a kid I could intuit how these settings work, why do I have to look up everything now?’
I agree with many of the points presented. I’ve been working a project for a couple years now that I’ve been hoping may some day help out by gamifying tech education without being too blunt about it. I’ll see if I can break out my thoughts and generalized approach I’m attempting. Keep in mind these are my own thoughts based on observations and conclusions. The project is not yet to the point of user testing. I would love contrasting opinions.
– Know the start and end of the skill range you’re aiming for and allow for varying degrees of engagement within that range.
For example, in my project the plan is to require very little engagement to play the game at a base level.
The game has reward systems that reward the player for playing the game at base level to test players to find those that find the base game interesting and worth playing.
The game has additional optional reward systems to engage the player with the basics of the educational portion of the game. Those who are seeking experimentation within the game might find this layer sooner than others, so my thought is to sprinkle these optional rewards in shortly after it’s expected that the player understands the foundational game-play mechanics. It’s important that these optional rewards enhance the experience of the base game to be worth exploring. Ideally there would be experimentation depth here that can be used but isn’t required, even to gain the optional rewards. I also don’t expect many players to venture farther than this. Or a game might cap out in depth here.
My plan for the next layer of depth is for the game to be open source with extensible systems to allow for advanced creativity within its systems - going as advanced as the written software allows. Ideally the prior layer builds skills in understanding how the underlying game functions so that it can serve as an understood example to compare the written code to past experience. This would also hopefully allow for a community to develop and share knowledge, encouraging more to join this layer and learn.
Not every layer is for every player. But the goal is to reward experimentation. Open-source and potential for mods give room for the more advanced layers to improve the more basic layers which I hope might create a feedback loop of drawing more players into the advanced layers.
Going further than this may get off-topic so I’ll stop here.
Edit to add:
Warcraft III / Starcraft II and custom games made within are an example.
I’m sure there are more examples but these stand out to me.