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For the same reasons the world is ok with only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems. Consolidation benefits users. It increases capital i

by simonh 5y ago

For the same reasons the world is ok with only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems. Consolidation benefits users. It increases capital investment in the dominant platforms making them better faster; it increases the chances your software and skills will be compatible with your next computer; you benefit if your family, friends or colleagues use a compatible platform; it focuses developer efforts to have fewer platforms to develop for so there’s more better software. Users flock to dominant platforms because it’s in their interests to do so, and in their interests that others do too. This is why desktop Linux never gets anywhere. Even if one distro was dominant in users, that’s completely decoupled from it getting the lions share of developer support and it wouldn’t give it any advantage in resources. There’s no feedback loop to elevate a dominant distro. Maybe that’s a good thing, perhaps the value in desktop Linux is it’s diversity and ability to address niche specialisation, at the price of market power. There is a feedback loop in commercial server distros because that is a commercial market, hence RedHat’s dominance.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
> Consolidation benefits users. Only to a point then it crosses over into exploitation. If users could switch OS's more easily then there would probably be more of them in widespread use, like browsers. As it is most people have to buy a new device to change OS. Websites themselves become sticky because of network effects and familiarity.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems There's a chap from RedHat here, telling me that Linux is commercially viable.
- simonh 5y ago
  There are several commercially viable desktop OSes other than Windows and MacOS, but they are not mass market. I knowingly wrote my comment to exclude specialist players addressing niche markets because they have completely different adoption dynamics. Actually ChromeOS is arguably mass market. That's all beside the point though really. It doesn't change the fact that the dynamics that drive consolidation are actually in a very large part motivated by user self interest.

by simonh 5y ago

paulryanrogers 5y ago

> Consolidation benefits users. Only to a point then it crosses over into exploitation. If users could switch OS's more easily then there would probably be more of them in widespread use, like browsers. As it is most people have to buy a new device to change OS. Websites themselves become sticky because of network effects and familiarity.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems There's a chap from RedHat here, telling me that Linux is commercially viable.

simonh 5y ago
There are several commercially viable desktop OSes other than Windows and MacOS, but they are not mass market. I knowingly wrote my comment to exclude specialist players addressing niche markets because they have completely different adoption dynamics. Actually ChromeOS is arguably mass market. That's all beside the point though really. It doesn't change the fact that the dynamics that drive consolidation are actually in a very large part motivated by user self interest.