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Thomas Watson's quote is misrepresented and it is more prescient than it appears. There are indeed maybe five computers on the world market: the BlackRock compu

Thomas Watson's quote is misrepresented and it is more prescient than it appears. There are indeed maybe five computers on the world market: the BlackRock computer [1], the Google computer, the Tencent computer, and maybe a few others. A computer can be implemented in one CPU, or in millions of CPUs: if the control and the data ownership behind the CPUs is the same, it is still one computer. Watson's quote is more about psychology rather than technology, just look at the hullabaloo of crypto: a theoretically decentralized technology and the people still use centralized exchanges. In the extreme you could say that today we have only one computer, the ASML computer [2], since they are the only ones making the machine that makes the machine. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock) [2] ASML: TSMC's Critical Supplier, Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsn1CUyXWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsn1CUyXWs

oblio 4y ago
> Watson's quote is more about psychology rather than technology, just look at the hullabaloo of crypto: a theoretically decentralized technology and the people still use centralized exchanges. Well, that's easy. I forgot who mentioned it, but crypto has 0 support for actual clients, and the vast majority of day-to-day computing now happens on mobile end user devices (phones, tablets, laptops). So besides (what should be) this fatal flaw, the second thing crypto requires you is to manage your keys SUPER carefully yourself or a server. Nobody[1]'s going to do that. I'm a techie and I don't want to maintain my own servers. What hope does Joe Locksmith have? So in practice crypto will always centralize. [1] 99% of the population.