Enslavement Ware

Software or hardware that compels the user to spend more time tweaking, configuring, adding-on, and generally serving the machine than they do actually using it.

This includes:

Here's another: an editor (with its own wiki, even!) with version numbers past the teens that buries its (estimate) 1500 preferences, but includes a Rogerian psychotherapist to help you deal with the sheer overload of knobs to tweak. Could you be referring to MicrosoftWord? [No, Emacs; the comment was literal in all respects, not satirical (aside from some hyperbole about intentions). Emacs is a much larger phenomenon than non-users could possibly imagine -- speaking as a vi user.]

Not sure that this one qualifies, as EmacsEditor is actually useful out of the box, unlike the other examples above.

Speaking as an Emacs user, I have found Vim to be more useful straight out of the box...


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