Quiet Software

Really vibe with this post from Mike Swanson. In the post Mike goes into some of the history and motivations why software has become so obnoxious and why the problem has become so wide spread. His term for software that stays away from this trend is backseat software, I like to think of it as quiet software.

I’ve started to think of this as backseat software: the slow shift from software as a tool you operate to software as a channel that operates on you. Once a product learns it can talk back, it’s remarkably hard to keep it quiet.

One of the comments below the post nails, in my view, the reason: advertising. Not just in the sense of promoting the product directly, but promoting either a feature or the users action resulting in the product being promoted.

Everytime I get the popup to ask for a review, I feel that they are not at all interested in my opinion, but the only reason for me to review is that it will help with App Store ranking.

I see no quick or easy solution to getting back to software that is more quiet. If anything, I think for the next couple of years with vibe coded apps it will only get worse.

But I really like this concept and I will try to keep my software as quiet as I can.