> I'm not sure that's true, because no one does that on mobile devices.
Even my mother sorts her pictures into gallery folders. Granted – a lot of sorting on mobile happens automatically (per app).
But "consumer devices don't need an accessible file system" is not a good argument to extrapolate that to machines people use productively. Don't get me wrong, I do think we can improve filesystems in terms of usability – I just don't think having some of it in your head will go away any time soon (and if it does, it will not be an improvement).
My point is, that in a productive environment the filesystem becomes part of your brain, just like a carpenter's workshop becomes part of their brain. This is not a bug, it is a feature. You don't need to think about where things are, because you arranged your environment in a way that suits the tasks you are doing 99% of the time. Now if someone came in and arranged the tools for you, moved them around automatically by their own logic, chances are that it doesn't fit your current task, your personal preferences, etc.
Moving from a world where you blindly know where something is, to one where you have to guesstimate what another entity "thought" would be an appropriate place for the thing they are looking for is not progress. If you were to make a automatic system that can read thoughts and put the file precisely in the place people are expecting it to be – that would be an improvement, but everything else not so much.
The key difference for mehere is the one between productive work and consumption: If you are in a space where you are consuming (e.g. a food on a buffet) it is totally acceptable to not have it your way. Who cares if it takes you 5 seconds more to find the balsamico for your salad? Tasks that you don't do productively like looking at pictures on your smartphone – who cares if it takes you a minute more to find a thing? But if you are a professional photographer and you look for that one picture you took in a specific session 4 years ago not a lot will beat a well built folder structure.
Even my mother sorts her pictures into gallery folders. Granted – a lot of sorting on mobile happens automatically (per app).
But "consumer devices don't need an accessible file system" is not a good argument to extrapolate that to machines people use productively. Don't get me wrong, I do think we can improve filesystems in terms of usability – I just don't think having some of it in your head will go away any time soon (and if it does, it will not be an improvement).
My point is, that in a productive environment the filesystem becomes part of your brain, just like a carpenter's workshop becomes part of their brain. This is not a bug, it is a feature. You don't need to think about where things are, because you arranged your environment in a way that suits the tasks you are doing 99% of the time. Now if someone came in and arranged the tools for you, moved them around automatically by their own logic, chances are that it doesn't fit your current task, your personal preferences, etc.
Moving from a world where you blindly know where something is, to one where you have to guesstimate what another entity "thought" would be an appropriate place for the thing they are looking for is not progress. If you were to make a automatic system that can read thoughts and put the file precisely in the place people are expecting it to be – that would be an improvement, but everything else not so much.
The key difference for mehere is the one between productive work and consumption: If you are in a space where you are consuming (e.g. a food on a buffet) it is totally acceptable to not have it your way. Who cares if it takes you 5 seconds more to find the balsamico for your salad? Tasks that you don't do productively like looking at pictures on your smartphone – who cares if it takes you a minute more to find a thing? But if you are a professional photographer and you look for that one picture you took in a specific session 4 years ago not a lot will beat a well built folder structure.