IT is broken

IT is broken

Let's be honest - the IT industry is very broken and merely working by metaphoric duct tape. That's also the reason people are working longer hours than before and are also burning out. Here are some of the pointers that I can think of:

  1. Password management
    This one really hit the gutter in recent years.  First of all, the increase in password complexity to keep our accounts safe is getting more ridiculous day by day. We are basically trying to fight a losing war against super-powered GPUs that can figure out the passwords in mere minutes these days. You cannot keep increasing the password complexity without making it inconvenient for users.
    To top it off, the MFA/2FA process feels like sugar coating a broken process. "You need one more device to access this device. Oh also, we need another identifying characters such as fingerprint etc. to let you in". Computers will keep getting faster and faster so does that mean we keep on stacking layers after layers to add security? It's like adding another door, and another, and another to access the main front door. Sure, it will buy you time but won't really increase security.
  2. Multiple monitors
    I get it, it looks sci-fi to stare at a colosseum of monitors glaring right back at you. But I personally noticed that I actually work less efficient when there are multiple monitors running. Even if the extra monitors are sitting idle. It's similar to reading a book while having multiple books open right next to it. It's just harder to focus on the current task you are working on. Besides, you are just working way more and harder than what you are getting paid for.
  3. Inefficient communication
    Be it workplace or just chatting with friends, we are actually communicating less efficiently than before. Chatting is very convenient but also takes longer to communicate an idea and textual conversation practically strips away any kind of tone and emotion required to understand the full context. Audio snippets are one solution but we haven't figured out how to use them in every settings. Maybe, this time we can use AI to tag audio snippets according to the tone of the sender? For example, sarcasm can be hard to come through clearly over texts so the AI can listen to the audio and tag it "sarcastic" something like that? That way, if you are in office where you may not be able to listen to the audio, you can still understand the context.
  4. Prioritizing growth over innovation
    Most tech companies these days focus on the growth aspect of a company a lot more than coming up with innovative products. Venture capital is sweet but it comes at the cost of pushing a product that is not what it seems it is. Look at the ChatGPT phenomenon - companies are creating products left and right based on the technology without grasping even a little how it works. The other day I was visiting a website that has implemented ChatGPT-based digital assistance to help the customer. But since the assistance is using the same ChatGPT training model as pretty much everyone else, I was able to quickly divert the conversation from the product to the crimes of WWII. A human assistance would probably keep insisting to divert the conversation back to the product and not answer any WWII specific questions.
  5. Minimalism taken too far
    This also is not specific to IT sector only. But I am tired of buying products where the design is so sleek that it's practically unusable unless I look up a YouTube video or tutorial. The other day I was trying to use a spare mouse that I had and for the life of me, I couldn't find the dongle that came with it. Then finally I remembered that the mouse has a small compartment underneath the top cover where you can store the dongle. Thing is, why didn't the mouse had a small arrow sign or something saying "Lift" to give the user some direction? A lot of mini computers these days also doesn't come with any labels on the body. I am well versed with all the IT symbols and voodoo but I sometimes see my elderly parents struggling with figuring out what this or that button do. Why they can't just label "On/Off", or "USB" and stuff like that? That's bad user interface design when the user has to look up Google to find answers.

These are just a handful of annoyance surrounding IT that I came up with off the top of my head. But notice that all these little inconvenience add up to the dissatisfaction of the IT industry.