Some time back I wrote a brief entry regarding the adoption of products. In it, I made the blaringly obvious observation that many products that seem to be revolutionary, and that have taken the market by storm, really just made existing products or technologies slightly easier to use, or slightly more useful (as amazing and technologically remarkable an iPod is, for most users it's functionally equivalent to a 1980 Walkman).

It's a better mousetrap model that has driven business, and consumerism, for decades.

In reverse, making something a little less convenient, and a little less accessible, works effectively at avoiding undesired behaviour in a target audience.

Anti-piracy efforts, for instance, have never been pursued with expectations of absolute success, and it really hasn't broken their model when someone sits in IRC #warez channels all day, and then puts their PC at risk of spyware/trojans/viruses with cracks and serial gens. It's the other 99% of the population that's the target of low-barrier anti-piracy technologies. Those are the people who would rather just pay $49.95 at the computer store than waste the time or take the risks.

Authorization, serial numbers, machine keying -- all of these are intended to make it just a little more of a hassle to use unauthorized copies, decreasing the casual piracy of normal people. Of course sometimes it backfires, and the anti-piracy techniques are more of a pain than the alternative, but that's another story.

Manipulating "ease of use" can work for self-control as well. A common bit of wisdom for those looking to pursue healthy eating is "avoid it once at the store, or avoid it countless times at home" -- If you can stop yourself from buying a bag of cookies or box of ding dongs at the grocery store, the adage goes, that one exercise of self-control will save from having to use restraint countless times as said treats sit on your shelf, begging to be consumed. Sure, you could just hop in your car and go buy a box of ding dongs when the munchies hit, but for many people the desire is low enough that it isn't worth the trouble, and you either go without or choose something healthier.

This sort of "front-end self control" came to mind today as I analyzed the things that work, and the things that don't, in my weekly online adventures: Being in software development of course means consuming the news and information in the industry, and conversing (and hopefully debating) with informed, interesting people who have an enlightened point of view. The hope is to consume valuable, worthwhile information, and to engage in conversations that leave me feeling a little more knowledgeable.

On my web adventures, the things that work are those that move me towards goals, help my understanding of industry technologies and trends, or even just entertain me (all work is a recipe for trouble, and a funny YouTube video or The Onion article every now and then is very beneficial for productivity).

The things that don't are basically everything else, which is a set usually comprised of sites that I visit almost reflexively: Sites that once had merit for me personally, but no longer do (perhaps "we've grown apart", and they're at a technology level or scope that I'm not really interested in at this point, or perhaps their content has gone from quality to garbage), but I still find them sitting in my bookmarks listing, usually with shortcut keys.

I habitually find myself typing their URL without even really thinking about it. I'm human, and thus a creature of habit. Once there I'm invariably sucked into unfulfilling content, or annoying, unfulfilling debates.

Yet, while these sites have limited utility for me now, their "ease of use" is extraordinarily high simply as a function of acclimation and habit.

So, much like avoiding the bag of cookies at the grocery store, I've enacted some simple controls to make it just a little more of a hassle to visit them.

• I've "banned" them in Adblock. This basically means that visiting them in Firefox -- my browser of choice -- requires reconfiguring the Adblock rules, marginally decreasing the ease of use. Sure, I could just jump over to another browser, but losing the enormous functionality and benefits of Firefox with my select set of Extensions dramatically lowers the "ease of use" factor, eliminating any marginal interest in visiting these sites.
• I've "banned" them in my router. Most routers nowadays include L5-L7 filtering, allowing it to inspect and block requests for certain domains/URLs. I go in this section so infrequently, and the interface is so terrible, that it smashes ease of use to the ground, despite acclimitization and habit.

Of course there are many ways that I can circumvent this, most directly by just turning off the self-imposed "restrictions", but that's missing the point - that's like hopping in my car and driving to the grocery store because I feel like a cookie. It isn't going to happen simply because the functionality provided is far too low to offset the nuisance of getting there.