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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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People often say that, but I've yet to hear anyone actually explain what's so awful about it, or what replacement would be significantly better for an actual computer, despite seeking out that information. Sure, let's get rid of desktops, but in favour of what?
Yeah. Any digital file system that would be better would be better IRL too, assuming the physical items had the same properties as digital files. So whatever organization system they come up with should work with paper sheets, music and game discs, etc. as well as digital files. And yet most of the ways organizing physical items sucks is 3-dimensional spatial dimensions, non-repelicability, non-trivial to move around/access/put back, etc. All things digital files have (although files still have a 1-dimensional dimension requirement in file size and probably more volatility.
Haven't heard anything that's better. Especially since the alternative file systems I've heard about seem to be more abstract and don't convert back into hierarchical file systems as easily as hierarchical file systems are able to absorb whatever mushy connections/logic that people seem to partially desire via metatag systems and shortcuts/symlinks.
Like, right now I can sort all my anime via a folder titled "!genre" and then inside it have non-exclusive genres with shortcuts to the anime folders I would consider horror, classic OVAs, want to re-watch, etc. I don't see how having a more abstracted file system makes this any easier or faster, necessarily. The people who don't want to deal with this seem to not want to deal with computers at all and want a Star Trek/AI/etc.-type agent to handle it all for them via voice command or thought command or something. It's not an incompatibility with current computer systems, it's their ignorance or hatred of them in totality.
a file browser that also displays metadata?
The desktop was always a conscious design decision to bridge non-users by providing analogies to what they were familiar with at the time. And besides that, hierarchical taxonomy is a great way to organize anything.
To the contrary there have been people who do actually explain what's so awful about it and people who have been coming up with alternatives. In fact, you have probably used alternatives without even thinking about it in this context. To make a long story short, it is easier to predict the end of the world than it is to predict the end of the desktop metaphor. The reason why you have trouble critiquing it yourself or thinking of alternatives (outside of technical knowledge, I am not a UX designer either), is because your intuition has been engineered. It's been engineered by a small group of techbros from the 70s. Much like many things in the current day. The very structure of capitalist business, particularly office work, is the foundation for broader computing. It's another level of capitalists inventing reality.
There are feature and technical shortcomings, some laid out in this very thread, because of the adherence to a desktop metaphor. Beyond that there is a social critique around who gets to decides what human interfaces are, how they work, how they line up with actual humans, and who gets to own them. It goes one step further than the linux evangelists, to question the nature of personal computing itself, not just the OS.
Some content to get you started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGpBQgZ5IsI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioki1q6yCok
https://archive.org/details/humaneinterfacen00rask
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zumdnI4EG14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En_2T7KH6RA
I don't know, this feels like arguing that there's a better way to read books than line-by-line and sequentially by page. I wouldn't even go so far as to argue that the desktop metaphor is the best paradigm for using computers, but it is an apparent one that I was able to understand even as a small child. For that reason, I would even say it's almost self-evident. Because nobody taught me how to plumb a computer and I still figured it out.
Even in that Liber Indigo series, the conclusion just sounds like he's describing Zettelkasten. For the people who are so opposed to the desktop metaphor, just make the mockup of what the alternative is. It doesn't even need to work. Just present the idea. We're talking about computers, it so it doesn't need to be some philosophical journey to explain how we got here. Just present the alternative. Where is it?
And as one final point, I have to completely disagree with Ted Nelson about paper being a prison of four walls. I consider paper the most emancipating invention of all time. Reaching the written word, and then being able to transmit it to others, is probably the hallmark achievement of humanity. His demonstration of Xanadu space is interesting but really it just looked like a cool program that can more or effectively be replicated by a wiki. And I think that's Nelson's major failing, he's incoherent. If we're to ask him what the underlying structure of his Xanadu ... documents are? They're just files. Okay, but maybe that's because it's the OS's limitation. Are UNIX inodes the problem? Could he describe an alternative representation of data for the computer to use?
To bring it back to the OP, I think the biggest problem with all these alternative imaginings of how file systems or desktop metaphors or GUIs or whatever should work is that they all seem to require active discipline and maintenance on the document authors, which in the case of my personal computer is just me. Consider the cross references in Xanadu. To produce such a work seems like it'd require more effort to both to create, but also to maintain for future edits. And the complexity and effort would rise drastically the more I produce. The best alive example of such a thing, Wikipedia, is extremely actively maintained by an army of editors. This is exactly why I don't personally use Zettelkasten. The maintenance of the structure is much more than I'm willing to put into it. While I totally oppose yet another stupid AI thing, I do think the idea of being able to use natural language to query my computer for all videos on my PC that feature my parents and the family cat is an interesting idea. Having the computer do it is releasing myself from the maintenance of tagging or categorizing my own data.
It's not an argument against linearity, sequential information, or even hierarchical classification as a whole. It's more about how it's imposed on us when alternatives exist. Just to throw this out there because people seem to be really confused about what alternatives exist: Flat storage (Dropbox), databases, graph-based organization, content addressed (git), tag systems (the subject of this thread), time based (apple photos). It's also important to note that different physical filing/classification systems exist as well. For some reason people seem to be assuming that computer file folders are exactly how physical inventory systems work too.
So why isn't there an operating system that uses a....solar system metaphor with a...graph-based file structure? For one, it's mainly a political/economical reason like how cars are the default mode of transportation. From a technical standpoint, there isn't a holistic solution. Any good OS should have different methods for different tasks. The argument here is that the two dominant OSes impose one method for all tasks.
The reason this is a philosophical argument is that it's about design philosophy. It's also about social and political philosophy imo. I know it seems incredibly low stakes when we're talking about sorting our benis memes folder. But it's just as political as anything else. You wouldn't say the reason why women in video games have bikini armor is because it's the most natural way to design women characters, that everyone can understand. It's open to critique and analysis as much as anything else is. That means bringing in philosophy.
I think a big problem with the content I posted is that the people involved switch between talking about desktop as a GUI, a general interface (not just graphical), and a filing system/OS within quick succession. There is a lack of distinction and clarity between tackling these different aspects. If I could change something I would have someone with a better sense of clarity tackle the subject. A big part of the problem when discussing this is that everyone is swapping what they're actually talking about and end up talking past one another.
I mean there's a person above describing how they have to use shortcuts in folders to point to media that defies category. Because the hierarchical file system actually sucks at media classification regardless of how many people are used to it and force it to work for them.
The two I bolded are just the document/folder models. In Dropbox's case it's literally that, it isn't flat storage. In Apple photos it's just better abstracted, but it's only useful for presenting one kind of document. In either case, you can replicate this by just putting everything in one folder and sorting by time with thumbnails. The two I italicized are structured in a way that makes it even less easy to retrieve data out of them unless you become specialized in the tooling. The one I struck through (because underline is not an option???) is just metadata that can fit into anything. And, finally, graph-based organization is the one I argue is the thing that requires the most amount of upkeep. This is incomparable to just having some shortcut to another folder for "random" or "uncategorized" media. If you manipulate the content your graph may become incoherent where the connections between data, not just the data itself, need revision as well. And that's in addition to forming the links between the nodes themselves, which is the maintenance I am talking about.
I don't even see how any of the alternatives you mentioned or any of the proponents of the alternatives I've seen over the years solve the specific shortcuts to media that defies category problem you cited.
The problem with this analogy is there are numerous obvious alternatives to cars. Foot, bike, train, airplane, horseback, rickshaw, litter, blimp, boat, segway, helicopter... We can easily point to the alternatives. So it's easy to argue that cars are bad and that we should build out more rail (and here are the 10 irrefutable reasons why). Because the alternative can not only be plainly described, it can be both imagined and actualized. The people who are arguing that there exists an alternative to the desktop metaphor are simultaneously saying it is hard to imagine and, for all intents and purposes, it cannot be actualized either.
And we can play at this unto perpetuity. What if we say that actually the superior form of transport is none of the above, it is this different form of transport. And it doesn't involve a road, because aren't roads so confining? They prevent you from seeing more of the world. So this special form of transportation doesn't use paths or roads, but landmarks. And you can travel from landmark to landmark. But... I won't tell you how that is meant to actually be accomplished. But I will really keep arguing for this new form of transportation, and I won't show you what the alternative should be like (and if I do, it will look suspiciously like the old thing). And then I'll also say that it's bad because Alan Kay, a "techbro" as you put it (it's so disingenuous to call the Xerox Parc researchers Tech Bros, because that implies they were profit-seeking trend chasers rather than research scientists) has forevermore trapped us in the world of office work rather than the Etch-A-Sketch world of play, or whatever.
Indeed, that is part of what is happening.
Of course not. But that's a shifty way to introduce the idea that everything is subject to critique (which I totally agree with), because you're implying that the desktop metaphor is as sexist and ridiculous as the bikini armor. And it can be reasonably argued that the desktop metaphor is the most natural way to design the computer interface, and it can more obviously be explained that the bikini armor is just horny men sexualizing a woman character's design.
But if everything is open to critique the way you're trying to open it, then I could just as easily argue that bikini armor is in fact the most natural way to design women characters (and I'd fail for what I think are obvious reasons), just as the proponents of the alternatives to the desktop metaphor say (but fail to demonstrate) the superior alternatives to the desktop.
btw thanks for replying to me. Because while I obviously disagree with you, this is nevertheless interesting for me to think about since I'm a computer ~~scientist~~ enjoyer but I also want the computer to be a liberating device and not a way for the capitalist class to further entrench themselves. I think it's a little of the former and a lot of the latter, sadly.
Tagging would because you would tag the media with whatever genres that apply. Searching any of those genres would bring up the media. This, again, is something that exists and is functional but is not part of the OS and has to be added in by third party. But it doesn't solve the fundamental problem because it's yet another interface layer. You can just fix the fundamental problem of the filing system.
Look, you keep saying nobody is showing you an alternative filing system or OS. I've just explained alternative filing systems that work and are used everyday. Your argument seems to be they're not true alternatives because they still use files and folders. Again, this is another instance of the jargon issue and being specific about what we're saying. No matter what filing system you use, the discrete packets of data are probably going to be called files. Any container in which you put a file is probably going to be called a folder. Those are the widely adopted terms for pieces of information and locations where the information is stored. It doesn't invalidate that there are existing and working ways to store and address a piece of information.
Besides, what is your argument then? That nothing exists outside of the desktop metaphor? That no filing system exists that isn't hierarchical? That's just plain wrong on a technical level.
As for why you don't have 30 alternative operating systems: capitalism. It's very simple. Creating an operating system is a lot of time and requires more than a few people. Companies aren't going to spend resources on that without users and there won't be users without a working piece of software. There have been alternative interfaces and file-handling. These have been created mainly for research purposes.
Within the commercially viable operating systems that do exist you even have desktop alternatives like Symbian, anything with a CLI, Android, iOS.
For the final time alternatives do exist, just not for your PC because the PC market has been dominated by the companies who created the desktop metaphor for home computers to begin with. It's not that nobody is refusing to show you or explain it, it's that you're refusing to acknowledge it. You have been presented with no other option in your entire life, due to the mode of production of software, and are mistakenly assuming it's just the correct option and no other option exists. Your reasoning is that if another option existed that was way better, you would hear about it and would be able to test it out. But due to the nature of how software is produced and what cuts through to consumers on modern hardware, you will not see those options. At least not in a way where you have extensive documentation and a person in a video explains how it works. You can go read white papers on the research that explains alternative examples of OS/filing system combos.
I know some people have a warm fuzzy feeling for post WWII Keynesian spending on private R&D, but let's not lose our way here. They are absolutely tech bros, that's where tech bros come from. That's where the Californian Ideology comes from. They were capitalists and they were profit-seeking. Xerox is a private company and the direction of researchers was steered by profit, even if that profit was near endless government money. They were not innocent imagineers just exploring the possibilities of cyberspace. They had a job and were paid to create the foundation for what we have now. There's nothing disingenuous about acknowledging basic facts.
Because the defense of desktop appeals to human nature in a specious way and defenders will not examine the inherent biases of society when discussing a piece of culture that is a product of a biased society. Suddenly there are no biases and nature prevails when it comes to this one outcome.
If you find yourself defending any capitalist product/outcome as "well that's just how the human brain works" or "that's just human nature", you should take a pause and do some introspection. Defenders of the dekstop will say that it had to be that way because people needed something to relate to. Then you say you understood it as a child. Children aren't office workers so you had no frame of reference for the metaphor. Meaning the metaphor was arbitrary in the first place. So no, it was not needed because the brain can only understand something if it relates to past experience. No, hierarchical thinking is not human nature. It's learned behavior and it's something you came to understand through engagement. It could have been almost anything else and you would have learned it too and it would now seem just as natural.
My final word is that you should use your socialist glasses to look at this the same way as you would someone defending "rules based world order" or any current system that is said to be the best or only way to do things. This is an appeal you hear all the time in defense of manufactured realities. We're always told it's the best way. If it's not the best way, it's the only viable way. If it's not viable, there are no other alternatives. The realm of possibility is restricted due to "real" concerns, technical limitations, or nature itself. This is hardly ever the case and is almost always an excuse to preserve an exploitative system.
Thank you very much for the links, I'll have a watch over the weekend. Truthfully, I appreciate the fact people are critiquing it, given how central computers are to many of ours lives, and think it's valuable to explore alternatives even if it leads nowhere, it's just frustrating how people will say that stuff as if it was self evident without even a sketch of what the alternative could be.
Here's some classic thinking about this stuff: Ontology is Overrated
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Link 3:
Link 4: