Luddite

There is a time in the life of virtually any product when it is better than it has ever been before, and better than it will ever be again. I’ll start by talking about software.

A while ago I remember running an old version of Winamp as my computer’s music player – it was small, didn’t take up much desktop space, started up quickly, did the job. That was back when it was about version 2 or 3. Now Winamp is at version 5, and an absolute dog. It crashes, takes ages to do anything. I don’t use it any more. The same can be said of several other software products. Skype is an excellent program, don’t get me wrong, but since upgrading to version 3 it has become less streamlined. Adobe Acrobat (and I’m still only on version 6) takes an age to start up – viewing a PDF online is only possible after waiting for Acrobat to do the equivalent of wake up, take a shower, have a coffee, smoke a cigarette, watch some news on TV, and pop round the corner shop for a packet of washing powder.

More examples? Nero – spare me. Slow, slow, slow. Firefox – good grief. I love Firefox, but it’s sometimes like pulling teeth waiting for it to get going. Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, Flash, Norton – all horribly, painfully slow and frustrating. I know I am a demanding computer user and have a lot installed on my PC, but I remember a time when all of these programs were far, far faster and simpler.

Let’s not even bother with Microsoft – well, maybe briefly. There once was a day when Microsoft Word would do text that was bold, italic, big, small, underlined, and a few extra things. Now, writing anything is a battle of wills with a program that second-guesses you at every turn and even tells you when it thinks your grammar is wrong. I want Bill Gates to tell me this – when Word continually feels the need to put a green wavy underline under my sentences, and then tells me nothing more that ‘Fragment (consider revising)’, what the hell does that even mean? We now have in Microsoft Vista a new operating system that you can only realistically upgrade to by having a high-end PC, or by buying a new PC altogether.

The problem is when people don’t leave well alone. In the case of software it seems to be that someone develops a product, that product is good, it does the job, it becomes popular. Then maybe Yahoo! buys the company, and someone starts thinking of all the cool extra things they can add on. Can they skin it? Can it be fully connected to the web? Can it automatically rub your back, read to you, walk the dog and do your ironing? So these things get added on, and on, and on. And before you know it, you have the software equivalent of a modern mobile phone. It organises your life, plays games, purrs gently at you in the wee small hours and translates instantly from Swahili – but how the hell do you make a phone call with it?

The latest version of Skype has irritatingly useless ‘Extras’. Why? I want to phone people, not play Chinese Checkers while using a lie detector on my mum. A word to the people who make software, mobile phones, computers and other clever things: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Bloated software is not useful, it’s not labour-saving, it’s not fun, it’s just bloated. When you reach the sweet spot, when people love your product, when it is as good as you hoped it could be, how about you quit buggering about with it?

There are more serious environmental and socio-economic issues around runaway technology. Technological change is indeed inevitable, and technological development is often a good thing. How else can we ever improve our world, unless we drive innovation? Technology has a real role to play, as an example, in reducing environmental impacts from the local to the global scale, through making improvements in areas such as sustainable transport and energy efficiency. The world is becoming a smaller and better-informed place thanks to the easy availability of information through digital TV, mobile phones, the Internet and other media. Developing countries in particular have benefited from the arrival of mobile phone networks, offering affordable telecommunications with reduced infrastructure overheads.

We are living in a world where the dual nature of technology is painfully apparent. The flip side of faster computers and flat-screen TVs that save space in our living rooms is increased power consumption, and pollution when we dispose of them to replace them with the newest models. Those of us who can’t afford to keep up with all of the latest software, and buy the latest computers just to support the heavy demands of that software, get left behind, in danger of becoming technological second-class citizens. The media streaming through mobile phones and the Internet can still be manipulated and controlled, and the last few years have given us an effective demonstration that increased availability of information does not necessarily lead to democratisation or love and understanding amongst our fellow humans.

This is nothing new. Technology is continually causing as many problems as it solves, right back to the Industrial Revolution, when improvements to manufacturing processes simultaneously made textiles affordable while making skilled labourers redundant, made Britain richer while destroying the health of generations, and gave us steam power while exponentially increasing energy consumption and pollution. The Luddites destroyed wool and cotton mills that produced inexpensive textiles which undercut the work of craftsmen. What do we do now? Smash up Dixons or just show some restraint?

I’m going to try and fight my inner geek, and ignore the latest toys. Gadgets last longer than it takes for the next gadget to come out, beaten up old mobile phones are much less worth robbing, and, apart from the really big innovations like the flying car, nothing much changes apart from more buttons and stuff you don’t need.

Simple alternatives to expensive and fiddly stuff:

1. Microsoft Office – Try Google Docs or a pen and paper. For grammar checking, get the most irritating smartarse you know to make stupid comments over your shoulder.
2. Adobe Acrobat – To make PDFs, PDF Factory, to view them, Foxit Reader.
3. Norton – For anti-virus, AVG Free.
4. Playstation 3 – Pack of cards. Fertile imagination.
5. iPod Video – Watch a TV from a long distance.