If someone is paying for cloud software should they, as a customer have a right to review and potentially reject substantial changes to the user interface and capabilities of the software? Or is it just fine for those who sell cloud computing to change ("update") their software on a whim?
(excluding security and minor bug patches)
You can wake up and find that the UI to software is totally different. Documentation for software has become pointless since it's always changing and not everyone has the same version and you may be randomly entered into a controlled trial... like a lab rat.
And these changes, pushed on users of cloud software without asking can happen overnight, without warning, and even for services you might pay for.
"well they said they might do that in the terms and conditions"
I don't really care?
@futurebird Imagine you bought a bike, and happily rode that bike for months, doing all the things you needed to do.
Then one day you pull your bike out of the shed and find that overnight the manufacturer has somehow made it so the handlebars now turn the wheel the wrong way. You turn them left, the wheel goes right, and you fall on your arse.
It's really irritating, but you figure they've done it for a good reason.
It takes several weeks to wrap your head around it, just in time for them to make it so that you now have to pedal backwards in order to go forwards.
You'd have some complaints, right?
@futurebird This kind of instability is one of the reasons I never took web apps very seriously. If you're serious about your work, you're probably going to choose something more old-fashioned.
But the instability has come, to some extent, even to desktop Windows, recently.
It's a sign, a smell, if you will, that suggests the makers are no longer trying to win the day by solving users' problems better than the competition, but by mining the users themselves as a resource.
@WesternInfidels @futurebird I do quite like #GDevelop for this. It's a game engine that can either be installed (for free) or used in a browser (realistically requiring a subscription for cloud storage). With the exception of some mostly ignorable AI guff, updates tend to be stuff I'm very happy to see. The browser version is very handy to have. But even then, using it professionally, there are times I find it's completely changed how in-game text is displayed and it's a whole job to fix...
@futurebird
This is a tough one.
My ingrained American says "let the market sort it out", but that's kind of a cop out. Though personally I have swapped services when they've made choices I haven't liked.
I had a thought recently that API access should be mandatory, regulated by the government. That way at the very least everyone is free to build their own interface and there is a bare minimum contract available for the shape of data. But that comes with a host of security concerns too. Worth tackling, but I have no confidence in government to handle technical subtlety.
@futurebird "...and you may be randomly entered into a controlled trial... like a lab rat."
Are the people doing non-consensual hidden A/B testing in production bound by an Institutional Review Board? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board
Ask software developers what an IRB is and I doubt you'd find even a few. IRBs were an implementation of the Nuremburg Code (1949), itself a response to the Nuremburg trials of some of the worst humans on the planet.
Sorry if I'm telling you a bunch of stuff you already know; seeing somebody actually acknowledge the questionable and non-consensual practice of A/B testing struck a nerve.
@futurebird I briefly worked in a law office last year. One day I heard the office manager screaming at a Quickbooks sales rep on the phone. The rep wanted her to switch to the online cloud version of Quickbooks instead of continuing to use the older standalone version.
The manager wouldn't budge; she said the online UI was garbage. Plus, as she was the only person in the office who used QB, there was no benefit to a multi-user cloud license. I think that broke the sales rep's brain. 😆
@computerchronicles @futurebird
I use QBO to manage the books of our condo association, because it allows others to log in and verify what I'm doing, where before the books were kept on one person's Macintosh, and it wasn't even possible to transfer the data, let alone look at it.
That being said, QBO changes *constantly*, rearranging and recategorizing tasks, and worse, changing the *names* of tasks, often discarding the terms accountants and bookkeepers have used since Scrooge & Marley were in business.
@futurebird
🎶 And you may ask yourself
"How do I work this? 🎶
Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
@futurebird somewhere in this 60,000 word end user license agreement that only a lawyer could understand, is a clause that enables the company to do whatever they want, including causing the user to come to an unfortunate end.
@futurebird
So tired of this, and randomly resetting all the preferences.
Plex app on apple tv updated, and reset the setting for "play theme music when browsing TV episodes" back on, after I explicitly turned it off.
A small thing, but one out of a continuous stream of bullshit that makes me feel like I cannot control my private space.
I'm strongly considering just going back to being homeless, because this seems worse.
@futurebird It's such a joy to search the web, or even a company's documentation, and find a description of how to do something that no longer matches the UI (or even the functionality) anymore.
@futurebird It really aggravates me when this happens with software I use for work.
Jira LOVES to move things around. But it's not a toy, it's a tool I have to use for my job. It's like if someone came into someone's workshop and just moved all the tools around.
@futurebird I voted something else because, as a person who makes cloud software for a living, there is a high operational cost associated with maintaining legacy software. I agree with you that changes are too disruptive, but I am also deeply aware that it is necessary.
I'm not sure what the solution is, exactly, but I don't think "no change" is feasible and I think "all change all the time" (status quo) is user hostile.
Seems to me it's a contract, and free to change at contract renewal. For some reason, people allow software to substantially change after purchase, and it's only because it can. That wouldn't be acceptable in any other part of life. Imagine if your microwave could change the button layout while you were sleeping. Get up to make breakfast, and you have to figure out how the machine works all over again.
@welbog @futurebird I like what the tidyverse packages in R do: have a long and well-advertised deprecation cycle, so that old code will continue to work, then continue to work with a warning (and indication of what you might do instead), then finally not work.
Sep 23, 2026, 11:04 AM@futurebird I think of it as similar to, say, an electricity provider: they don't have to ask clients about changes, as long as the service keep up with the standards.
@futurebird “I have updated our terms and conditions. Pray I do not update them further.”
Ideally providers should offer multiple versions if the UI substantially changes. I have even seen this done on rare occasions.
Sep 23, 2026, 11:46 AMIn a world where it's easy to replace one product or service or another, it was fine to let companies gamble: customers voted with their wallets, as they say.
But we don't live in that world anymore. We're down to monopolies with maybe two viable options. The lift to move to the one other competitor, and reset all the knowledge and processes (business or personal, today's world is complex), is expensive both in cost and time/effort.
@futurebird Hmm, interesting idea. I’ve never considered that before.
When it makes a use case (MY use case) difficult or impossible, I suppose “of course”.
The thought of managing that negotiation, or multiple UI versions, boggles my mind though…
Sep 23, 2026, 12:34 PM@futurebird As someone who is currently providing software that I think you could technically say is paid and cloud, here's the two exceptions I'm living in lol
1) You're paying for hosting and support of F/OSS, so the development itself is outside the reach of the contract
2) You knowingly paid for some kind of early access alpha/beta build
@futurebird
Especially if its just a UI change and not a damn feature change.
Just give me a fucking layout option!
Sep 23, 2026, 1:23 PM@futurebird all software as a service should be required by law to have released their software as open source. As a hedge and in exchange for the power and potential for exploitation inherent in a rental type arrangement.
All saas should be selling is the service, not a continual threat of bait and switch. Releasing the software would go a long way to instilling trust.
@futurebird I put "something else" but I think I should have put "needs approval".
I think that its crazy companies do that without consent. There are some things I use where I explicitly sign up for experimental features to get the latest. that should *only* happen if you explicitly want it. not "terms of service" consent theater but actual opt-in. its basic experimental ethics.
@futurebird It depends.
I'm assuming you're talking about the UI for your hosted software. Often, you sign an agreement that since they manage and maintain the software they have not just the right but a responsibility to keep it up to date, and sometimes updates do contain breaking changes.
I think that's fine as long as you (the paying client) are aware of this when you agreed to the T&C.
If this wasn't communicated clearly, then yeah that might be a problem.
@futurebird While obviously I believe people should be entitled to reject UI and functionality changes, my opinion is that idea (and the idea of owning software in general) is fundamentally incompatible with the business model of cloud based and especially subscription based software.
The entire reason businesses make cloud based solutions is to give them the ability to change the product after sale. If you want to own your software it has to run on your hardware.
@futurebird if you're paying for a service or utility I would expect it to remain as stable as possible, and that includes the user interface for software services. Now with cloud software subscriptions it's fine to introduce and surface new features, but that should not be a forced change to the interface, at least in my opinion.
@futurebird The greater issue is the cloud software itself. It rolls back a lot of the wins consumers made when computers were introduced in the first place.
If I was king of the world, I'd introduce some kind of severe disincentive for cloud software so it was only used where absolutely necessary.
@futurebird So if I have written some software which I allow you to use for a fee, you think that gives you the right to tell me how I am allowed to change my code? That's insane.
You have the right to stop using my software, and a right to your data in portable form, and that's it.
It depends. Business to Consumer, no. Business to Business, maybe. If a customer is big enough to be a significant percentage of revenue, then they do get some say - maybe not a right to decide, but certainly a right to be heard before the final decision is made.
@futurebird I feel like UI overhauls should be different software with a migration option (i.e. if you like Foo, you might enjoy Foobar! Ten day free trial; after that either go back to Foo, or your existing service agreement transfers over!)
I know there are very serious flaws in the idea. I'm just sptiballing.
Sep 23, 2026, 8:39 PM@futurebird It depends on the ToS. If you reserve the right to change these aspects, you might be ok. You could just agree to keep users informed, ahead of time.
Of course, as a user I would avoid such services for most things. But I acknowledge there might be services where this is appropriate and serves a user base best.
Don't change the ToS lightly though. You have a legal obligation to inform users and allow them to use it as grounds to terminate their contract/subscription etc. with you
@futurebird I mean, there's *some* nuance here. In general, I want them to push critical security updates without my needing to know or care about it. That's one of the two main reasons to use SAAS/cloud/whatever in the first place.
Adding new features? Iffier. Likely fine, but it's easy to imagine cases where it isn't.
*Removing* features? Changing existing UI and breaking everyone's muscle memory? Yeah, no, you shouldn't be doing that at all if you can help it, let alone without permission.
Sep 27, 2026, 1:22 AM@futurebird while I understand the frustration (and have been there myself, with SaaS of various kinds), as a developer the challenge is that with every older version that you add to this dynamic, the burden of maintenance of the codebase increases.
If you fix a bug, you may need to fix it in multiple different ways, places, if you add a feature, do you then also add it to the older version(s) of the user interface, or only to the most recent edition?
It's a lose-lose situation, usually.