Recently, in another post on the subject of textcasting, Dave Winer made a comment about text boxes:
Every time you see a tiny little textbox that’s a sure clue they’re trying to own you, and hoping you don’t notice.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/01.html#a154043
I think this is a reach. In my opinion, the simplest reason to use a text box for text entry is that users are used to it and it is easy to implement (using Occam’s Razor here). Another explanation is that it is use of prior art, as Dave Winer has written about before (see here, here, and here). No sinister plan to “own” anyone here. Could text editors be better/have more features? Sure they could! Could writing apps cooperate with each other and have APIs? Sure they could! Should people be demanding these things? Sure…maybe….or maybe they could make those things happen…or maybe they could submit a feature request….
If the software is open source (Mastodon et al), someone could make their own changes. If the software is a service provided by a company that does not charge for the service (hmmm…Twitter, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky come to mind), it seems more difficult for users to request features and drive changes. If a group of users REALLLY wanted something and no other app seemed interested, maybe they could create their own product (thinking Kickstarter here). To me, it comes down to this: how bad do you want this?
Finally, another take on this sentence comes from Ken Smith:
Based on Ken’s comment, I take this as “any antisocial behavior” in the blank – racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination, manipulation…the list can go on and on as Ken points out. This Quora thread has some good points about someone trying to “own” someone.
