Software Update Unrest: The Recent Happenings Around Tinder and Tesla

This paper concerns the cultural phenomenon of software update unrest. It focuses on two recent cases of update unrest surrounding Tinder and Tesla that likewise highlight the growing centrality of digital social media for negotiating power dynamics between software developers and end users. We discuss the similarities and differences between the two cases and address how they compare with the well-known iOS6 Maps update unrest from 2012. We also analyze the specific role played by DSM and highlight some of the new types of DSM user behavior and communities that recently emerged around Tinder and Tesla update unrest activities. At stake in studying software update unrest, in our view, is not just matters of aesthetics and habits of use, rollout blunders and customer relations, but also, and more importantly, remotely enacted, highly social, and heavily mediated debates over how technology is made.