Forum Topic

important message to all hotmail users

Hello. I just wanted to bring to your attention that if you currently have a hotmail account, then in the next few days or even now, microsoft will be upgrading everyone to outlook. They have upgraded mine and it is so awful. Why do computer companies have to start messing around with a perfectly good design (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). I just can't get my head around it. The same with facebook. They started upgrading everyone and it was awful. Don't these computer companies ever consult the end users. With facebook, thousands complained but they insisted it was for the best.

Anna Lang ● 4765d5 Comments

Steady on old chap - handling that much reality makes me dizzy!A good post and a useful reminder, so many thanks.

David Bourne ● 4763d

Anna, you probably could sack the whole team. Just give Mark Zuckerberg $60,000,000,000 or so, and he might hand over the keys.Until then, what you want and what you think won't be a factor in Facebook's decision process, unless you leave the site and take hundreds of millions of users with you.

M Duley ● 4764d

Mine was 'upgraded' a few months ago and I would prefer to go back to the way it was.About 1965 would do.

Keith Iddon ● 4764d

Just this very second, facebook have also upgraded their systems. I hate all this upgrade. Why can't they just leave it alone. For some of you who don't know what I mean, you will soon find out in a few days time. It's the same at work. When the IT specialists!! start messing around with the systems, everything gets messed up. An upgrade tends to be worse than previously. I think they have to show they are worth their pay so have to be seen as improving the systems. I would sack the whole team if I could.

Anna Lang ● 4764d

Hi Anna,These are free services you are talking about.The reason companies make these changes is because they've decided the changes are best for them. You get the service free, the company gets to know about everything you do and say within the service, and where and when you do and say it.They then use that information to make money (usually by selling your data to advertisers).So the design of services, and changes to those services, are primarily for the purpose of ensuring those companies can achieve their commercial aims as efficiently as possible.If they do something to improve the user experience (something you might approve of) it's because they believe they will benefit even more from it than you. It doesn't mean they are interested in making you happy just for the sake of it.If they make changes you  disapprove of (and a small but vocal portion of their user base, but not enough to bother them - thousands of people complaining to Facebook, who have a user base of 1 billion people, isn't significant), it's because they still don't particularly care what you think if they've decided it will be of net benefit to them. They're willing to bet you'll continue using the service anyway.As the saying goes with free services on the internet:"If you're not paying for it, you are the product being sold".

M Duley ● 4765d