Re: Emigration from Usenet

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:

My point is that the “manage your own filters” model is a good
candidate for why almost everybody (expert or not) left Usenet.

That's a trip, 'cause I'm totally the "roll your own filters" kind of
guy.

Do you get that for most people it looks like a waste of time?

 
  But for me, the whole point is just to save time! I used to get
  tangled up in reading news about vanity or trivial stuff that had
  zero relevance to me. There was this one news source where I'd
  skim through about 40 headlines with article descriptions daily,
  and end up reading stories about some bartender's teenage years.
  Now, my system only shows me about two or three headlines from the
  same source. I only need a fraction of the time. Sure, I had to put
  in some time upfront to write my Python script, but it was worth it.

Except...  The typical computer user thinks Python is a particular kind
of snake with scales and fangs.

And the typical computer user also is quite incapable of recognizing
accumulated effort over time (i.e., the integral of "effort vs. 
time").  In fact this is typical of most people in general, they are
incapabile of recognizing that "extra effort today, for 1h, will save
me effort for every tomorrow to come".  They see only the instantaneous
effort right now, and if it looks too to be too much, right now, they
never bother making the effort.