Minimalism overtakes technology (again)

This is a good post on the evolution of technology to meet the abilities of non-techy users. The author -- Rob -- argues that the "http://" in URLs renders the entire URL system to be Greek to the majority of web surfers. I agree that this might apply to grandmothers, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of society cannot learn something like this. The proof: six of Ask.com's top 10 searches last year were for other websites; sites like Facebook, Craigslist and -- unbelievably -- Google. People actually use Ask.com to search for Google. (Which I gather feels like walking from your front door to a bus stop to take a bus to your house to drive to work.)

I cannot believe Rob's thesis because people do adapt, and are not stupid in the majority. Cars are pretty hard to drive if you've never done it; but they're so useful that hundreds of millions of people operate them and negotiate highway systems daily. Cars are not a "take me to cake and pie" technology; they're hard to use than that. I suppose the argument in favour of Rob is that, if the voice-command car existed, only a few people would bother learning how to steer and navigate.

It's an interesting concept on a higher level. Rob also writes"in the iPhone OS, the concept of the file is essentially gone. It’s been replaced by 'apps and their stuff.'" Well, it does make sense that digital cameras present you with the photos you took, rather than a folder filled with applications and jpegs. It also makes sense that CD players in the early 1980s simply played music tracks, not files and root data. Toaster ovens don't cook by watts; they cook by a number from one to six.

When technology ceases to have "http://"'s and file folders, and starts having meaningless numbers from one to six, etc., it becomes an appliance. And any walk through a Sears store will tell you that people who don't care about how a thing works will drop thousands of dollars on appliances. They buy the result -- the cooked chicken or the collection of photographs, etc.