Why do software giants think they can decide what I want?

[chrishansenhome]

No, this isn't about the recent Facebook débacle, although it could have been, I suppose.

This morning I found an email in my mailbox from LinkedIn. Now, I don't believe LinkedIn is of much use to me any more, and as soon as I retire formally I'll delete my profile and forget about them, but until I do formally retire I suppose that it doesn't hurt to be on there. I belong to a lot of groups, and I get a daily digest of activity for most of them. The salient part of the email is pictured below:

WTF?

If I'd wanted weekly digests I'd have asked for them.

No, I don't visit the site very often. But, I don't want to be told that I can only get news from them weekly. If it cost them anything to send the email daily, I'd say that they were justified. But it doesn't.

On the other hand, if by sending me that email they wanted me to visit (if only to change my preferences) then it worked, as I visited and changed my preferences back. Presumably the high mucky-mucks at LinkedIn are now huddled in a secure conference room somewhere trying to figure out why I changed my preferences back.

Comments

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

I went through the exact same thing with them with two groups I'm in -- it pisses me off when they, or Facebook with the recent notifications change, just arbitrarily change my email settings from the way I had already set them myself.

Arbitrary Settiigs Changes

[am0.livejournal.com]

I have stopped using a number of services, including operating systems, because they have made arbitrary changes, supposedly to help me. I detest such misuse of power. It gets particularly annoying when I have to repeatedly change the same settings that the system promptly changes back to their preference. If it is an option, services shouldn't meddle in the choices I make.