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You seem to be taking my point as prescribing what everyone should want. But that's not what I'm suggesting at all. I think well designed consumer software and

You seem to be taking my point as prescribing what everyone should want. But that's not what I'm suggesting at all. I think well designed consumer software and hardware ecosystems that get out of the way are great. I don't want a world where there's no iPhone experience that has all that value in integration that you're describing. I'm not an OSX user but plenty of family members are and they seem to be well served by exactly that. My point is that if the world's #1 computing platform only has that choice then we lose the ability to get some kinds of innovation driven by the few percent that care and have the time to tinker. And HN has a much larger proportion of the kinds of people that will want to do that innovation or at least value that it's possible. We wouldn't have gotten Linux if Linus couldn't develop on his hardware. But maybe we've just been spoiled with mass-market general-purpose hardware up to now and this is the new normal. I shudder to think that but maybe it's true. At this point I don't think I'd much care for a smartphone if I didn't need it for work. And it's the stuff of nightmares for me particularly if that was also the case on the PC/laptop side of things.

pdimitar 8y ago
Apologies if I misunderstood. No offense meant anywhere. I agree that it's rather horrifying what we settled for these days. The world to me is a lot darker compared to my student years back in 1997 to 2001 when I played Quake3 for days on end, without sleep, with only WC and food breaks -- and when I was coding my heart and brains out on things I believed could shape the future world. These are the times I'll dearly remember until the end of my life. And nowadays almost nobody seems to be wanting to make things better. It's saddening and extremely discouraging. I get it and I agree with your overall premise. What I was mostly saying is that those of us who had wide-eyed naive optimism for the future and were there when the internet started gaining steam are now anywhere between 30 to 50 and we can only dream of the ages past when we could do the things you described without any other worries. In the end, I am just pointing out that these past life phases are long gone and aren't likely coming back for the most of us. And I'll say it again: I have a big respect for those who still manage to truly innovate and disrupt.
- pedrocr 8y ago
  > What I was mostly saying is that those of us who had wide-eyed naive optimism for the future and were there when the internet started gaining steam are now anywhere between 30 to 50 and we can only dream of the ages past when we could do the things you described without any other worries. I agree and identify with this. The reason I point these things out here is that the kinds of people actually doing the leg work on these platforms are on the site. And in some cases if they did a few things differently (e.g., upstream the drivers much earlier in the SoC bringup) then maybe we could actually fix this. I'm not nearly as pessimistic about the situation as you :)

pdimitar 8y ago

Apologies if I misunderstood. No offense meant anywhere. I agree that it's rather horrifying what we settled for these days. The world to me is a lot darker compared to my student years back in 1997 to 2001 when I played Quake3 for days on end, without sleep, with only WC and food breaks -- and when I was coding my heart and brains out on things I believed could shape the future world. These are the times I'll dearly remember until the end of my life. And nowadays almost nobody seems to be wanting to make things better. It's saddening and extremely discouraging. I get it and I agree with your overall premise. What I was mostly saying is that those of us who had wide-eyed naive optimism for the future and were there when the internet started gaining steam are now anywhere between 30 to 50 and we can only dream of the ages past when we could do the things you described without any other worries. In the end, I am just pointing out that these past life phases are long gone and aren't likely coming back for the most of us. And I'll say it again: I have a big respect for those who still manage to truly innovate and disrupt.

pedrocr 8y ago
> What I was mostly saying is that those of us who had wide-eyed naive optimism for the future and were there when the internet started gaining steam are now anywhere between 30 to 50 and we can only dream of the ages past when we could do the things you described without any other worries. I agree and identify with this. The reason I point these things out here is that the kinds of people actually doing the leg work on these platforms are on the site. And in some cases if they did a few things differently (e.g., upstream the drivers much earlier in the SoC bringup) then maybe we could actually fix this. I'm not nearly as pessimistic about the situation as you :)