Why fix things that aren't broken? Aren't there actual broken things that need fixing?

Answer the second question first, please.

And, obviously, there can be only one answer to that one.

But, no, this morning, after being forced to reboot my fast-failing computer for the fourth time in two days (not counting the couple of times it's decided to reboot itself) and finally signing onto Blogger, your Internet home for this page and Page One of FWIW, I got the chilling message (reproduced above) in the upper left hand corner of my screen.

Things that actually work don't need improvement... such as the sign-in page for this site... and they especially don't need allegedly cosmetic 'look and feel' fixes.

Like how they "fixed" Quicken. Here was a perfectly good checkbook program, that worked well on its own, tied in with TurboTax, tied in with banks -- but, oh no, it needed improvement from a program that one updated every few years... to a subscription-only app, with an annual fee.

Gee... who did that help? Me? Consumers generally?

Now, instead of starting on command, Quicken begins its duties by looking for 'updates' -- and almost always finding them -- what is there to update so often? -- asking permission to download the updates found (you really don't have a choice) -- and then, after downloading said updates -- more often than not -- going back to sleep.

When I restart it -- again -- I can almost hear Quicken say, what? you wanted me to do something? I think it's mocking me.

They "fixed" Adobe similarly. I would have liked an update to my legal copy of Adobe Acrobat 9.0... but I was not going to agree to an open-ended subscription. Although version 9.0 was no longer sufficient to open new cases when the "new and improved" Illinois Courts website launched, I could still use Reader for that. For my own appellate work, and for occasional discovery responses, Adobe 9.0 carried me through right up until when I shut down my practice...

...at least up until the point where Odyssey introduced "enhancements" that made it impossible for me to use WordPerfect to print a brief to .pdf in a single step.

I figured a way around that, too. It was clunky and inelegant, but it got the documents filed. But it was anything other than an "enhancement."

I know I sound like an old guy that complains about every change in my routine.

And there is an element of truth in this, I admit.

If I didn't so admit, my kids would tell you all about how I fulminated at my first smartphone, calling it all sorts of names, as I tried to make the screen not blank out or change every time I touched the darned thing, the most polite of which may have been "Spawn of Satan"... but it is not true that I tried to buy a smartphone with a dial. The kids exaggerate.

Some, anyways.

But I eventually reached a modus vivendi with my phone... and, now, one or more phones, successors to that original fiend, are my inseparatble companions. I can learn. And grow. And adapt.

I can even embrace change, sometimes, when I can find some advantage or benefit in it.

But I don't hold out much hope for Google's planned improvements here. And I know there are plenty of real problems that Google could address first... but won't.