Interesting link. I’ve heard another description for that phenomena, but can’t remember it right now. However, I’m less optimistic about the dawn of end-user programming than Clay. I’d love to see it, but I’m afraid that folks are just too conditioned to believe programming is “too hard.” Without a doubt, that enforces one class of defaults.

Have you seen this post back from when Clay Spinuzzi was guest-blogging for Johndan? How might the LoD intersect with the “Print Shop moment” and end-user programming?

Another reason for the disengagement might be anxiety (”I’m afraid I’ll break it!”).

I think Manovich’s equivalent for Baudrillard’s silence is “the minimalist loft.” I’ve posted a longer excerpt from The Language of New Media which shows how that works for him.

As you can probably guess, my gut reaction to Manovich’s “use the default” was “No way! I”m not a Microserf!” I’m still trying to figure out if I agree, both with his argument about the defaults on computers, and apropos the culture at large. Obviously, I need to broaden the reading I’m doing to understand the “there is no individualization” arguments as they’ve been made by LM and others.

One part of American culture loves defaults: food, shopping, TV. Some, though not all, of the web community seems to be more up for changes and adjustments. Not Pimp My Ride for the Web, but something else.

The way you describe Manovich’s notion that users should (do?) rely on the logic of the default carries a hint of resignation as an undertone. I mean to say that he resigns to the fact that software can’t be individualized and so users should stop engaging in these fake acts of individuation. That undercurrent (which may certainly come from my own projections on your reading of LM) reminds me of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations, in which he suggests that the only response to the obscenity of communication is silence.