Aggravation 2.0

The definition of Web 1.0 was that it was a test to see how long a grown person would stare at a screen on which nothing was happening. Web 2.0 seems to be a test to see how many times a grown person can be persuaded to perform the same task with the implied promise that this time for sure it will work.

Yesterday, I was nearly to the point of dumping Flickr because the Uploadr application has, like most computer software, been "improved" to the point of uselessness. It works well enough to persuade you to commit a large chunk of time working with it only to fail at some critical point and lose everything. Worse, when I gave up on that and tried to catch up on some e-mail, Yahoo Mail decided that I didn't need to reply to e-mail. I could compose new messages, read, forward, in fact do everything except reply. Hitting the reply button would cause Firefox the trundle for several minutes, then present a blank page with the chipper message, "All done!" Then my anti-virus software decided to join in on the fun and started an endless update loop, wanting a reboot after each attempt. After playing that game for about four iterations, I just walked away and read a book.

Today, Yahoo Mail seems to have repaired itself, the Flickr Uploadr is still a piece of crapware, and my anti-virus wakes up every couple hours to natter at me about rebooting. Sometimes having the sum total of all human knowledge at your fingertips has a steep price.