Needy Programs

"If you've been around, you might've noticed that our relationships with programs have changed. Older programs were all about what you need: you can do this, that, whatever you want, just let me know. You were in control, you were giving orders, and programs obeyed. But recently (a decade, more or less), this relationship has subtly changed. Newer programs (which are called apps now, yes, I know) started to want things from you."

"The most obvious example is user accounts. In most cases, I, as a user, don't need an account. Yet programs keep insisting that I, not them, "need" one. I don't. I have more accounts already than a population of a small town. This is something you want, not me. The only correct reaction to an account screen And even if you give up and create one, they will never leave you alone: they'll ask for 2FA, then for password rotation."

""Okay, but accounts are still needed to sync stuff between machines." Wrong. Syncthing is a secure, multi-machine distributed app and yet doesn't need an account. "Okay, but you still need an account if you pay for a subscription?" Mullvad VPN accepts payments and yet didn't ask me for my email. How come these apps can go without an account, but your code editor and your terminal can't?"

"Every program has an update mechanism now. Everybody is checking for updates all the time. Some notoriously bad ones lock you out until you update. You get notified a few seconds after a new version is available. And yet: do we, users, really need these updates? Did we ask for them? I've been running barebone Nvidia drivers without their bloated desktop app (partly because it asks for an account, lol). As a result, there's nobody to notify me about new drivers."

Software relationships have shifted from programs executing explicit user commands to apps that increasingly request user data and ongoing interaction. Modern apps frequently require user accounts, two-factor authentication, password rotations, and persistent sign-ins, creating account proliferation and user friction. Some secure and functional applications avoid accounts, such as Syncthing for distributed syncing and Mullvad for paid VPN service without email. Automatic update mechanisms now check constantly and sometimes force updates, though many updates are unnecessary for individual users. Minimalist setups, like running bare Nvidia drivers without vendor desktop apps, can operate without update notifications for months.

Read at tonsky.me