There are two kinds of people in the world, those who completely misunderstand the value of friction, and those who depend on friction too heavily; GP clearly falls into the former group.
This feature provides value because it increases friction. It won't stop really determined and motivated users from leaking, but it'll make leaks, especially accidental leaks / those due to hacks, a lot less common.
The same applies to DRM, "security by obscurity", social media post editing / deletion, dark patterns, loss leaders, promotions and coupons, the list is endless.
If your user is a perfectly rational being with infinite time and infinite tech savviness, the proverbial "spherical cow", those features make 0 sense. Just like spherical cows, though, those users don't actually exist, and so friction matters.
That doesn't mean friction is infinite, though. It's too easy to overestimate it and fall into the trap of thinking that "users won't bother doing this, it doesn't matter if this combination of actions loses us money, it's too bothersome", and then get very surprised very quickly.
I work in security. I have had customers request this feature. I have asked them to do an anonymous survey of users to ask what action they would take if they were blocked from taking screenshots and users universally say they’d take a picture of their screen with their phone.
I don’t underestimate friction, I just know even my grandma would reach for her camera for a picture of her screen and she doesn’t even know what a screen capture is. It’s a stupid feature that doesn’t create friction, it just encourages users to take an untraceable action.
I would FAR prefer recording who took a screenshot than blocking it as a presenter.
> I would FAR prefer recording who took a screenshot than blocking it as a presenter.
It would be surprising if Teams does not already capture that kind of event in its user activity event trail[0].
The amount of privacy-invasive capturing and reporting that Teams does is so staggering that it can probably rival surveillance that of North Korea on its own citizens.
How exactly did you phrase the question? It's one thing to ask about a purely technical limitation. A different (and more relevant) question would be: if law or company rules prohibit you from recording or taking screenshots in some specific circumstances, and software is helping enforce that, what would you do?
> I have asked them to do an anonymous survey of users to ask what action they would take if they were blocked from taking screenshots and users universally say they’d take a picture of their screen with their phone.
Everyone knows this. You don’t need this survey (which surely was a real thing that actually occurred and not something you just conveniently imagined for this argument, right?) to tell you that.
It’s literally written in the linked article.
We know. There are ways around it. But it’s friction, and friction has value. People know it’s not perfect, but it’s another reminder that people aren’t supposed to be doing it.
It’s literally not friction. The average user has no clue how to take a screenshot. They all know how to take a picture with their phone.
It’s a solution searching for a problem it can’t solve.
Friction implies you’re stopping a user from taking an action they consider the easiest way to solve the problem. Since you think I “invented” the survey, I invite you to ask all of you non technical friends and family how they would go about capturing an image of their computer screen if they needed to quickly show you a copy of what they’re looking at.
I absolutely guarantee you that taking a picture with their phone will be the winner by an order of magnitude.
Taking out a camera to make a picture is pretty noticeable in a meeting with few participants. The standard way to use a phone camera involves lifting it pretty close to your eye level. Other participants could literally shout to please stop photographing the screen. It will be also very visible who was trying to do so.
Yes, somebody who's clever enough would keep the camera away from view, and maybe would try several times first to hold it in a way that gives a good view of the screen, etc. But this is out of scope, it's a clear malicious intent, when we could expect much more sophisticated means.
I think using the word friction is good. If you want your business to run smoothly you should not apply friction. In-fact, you should be looking for places where there is fiction and apply lube.
Either the information your are sharing is sensitive, or it is not. Applying friction to your colleges is just making their jobs more difficult.
This feature provides value because it increases friction. It won't stop really determined and motivated users from leaking, but it'll make leaks, especially accidental leaks / those due to hacks, a lot less common.
The same applies to DRM, "security by obscurity", social media post editing / deletion, dark patterns, loss leaders, promotions and coupons, the list is endless.
If your user is a perfectly rational being with infinite time and infinite tech savviness, the proverbial "spherical cow", those features make 0 sense. Just like spherical cows, though, those users don't actually exist, and so friction matters.
That doesn't mean friction is infinite, though. It's too easy to overestimate it and fall into the trap of thinking that "users won't bother doing this, it doesn't matter if this combination of actions loses us money, it's too bothersome", and then get very surprised very quickly.