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The Design is Very Human
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
having a moment here in gnome
to everyone pointing out that this is for touchpads;
a: it's awful on that too
b: note the mouse in the example given
"They're pushing"? Who's "they"? As far as I could see, it's an unchecked option.
In any case, what's the historical reason for mouse wheels actually working like they do?
It's the default in many recent systems despite historically not being so. It's a bad name for hinting the natural is the most common option or that the alternative is any more unnatural when it's just a matter of perspective. It's also not a descriptive enough name to be easily understood.
About the historical reason, my guess is that the mouse has always been the pointing device. Following this reasoning, when you scroll "down" you're indicating you want to expand the bottom of the screen. Auto scroll when present also uses this observer perspective over the content's ("natural") one.
Apple, for one, because not only do they default to this but there's no option to change it separately for the mouse wheel vs touch pad without third party software.