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He had other colorful pronouncements: 1991 "Microsoft is abusing its monopoly" 1993 "Wireless computing will flop permanently" 1994 "What the Internet needs

He had other colorful pronouncements: 1991 "Microsoft is abusing its monopoly" 1993 "Wireless computing will flop permanently" 1994 "What the Internet needs now is more competition among greedy entrepreneurs" 1995 "I predict the Internet's catastrophic collapse in 1996" 1996 "Everything on the Internet should be strongly encrypted all the time" 1997 "E-postage is a good thing" 1998 "The skunk is, like Microsoft, an exquisite survival machine" 1999 "Linux will fizzle against Windows"

dale_glass 4y ago
> 1991 "Microsoft is abusing its monopoly" Not really a prediction, more of a fact > 1994 "What the Internet needs now is more competition among greedy entrepreneurs" Competition is definitely good. > 1996 "Everything on the Internet should be strongly encrypted all the time" That pretty much came to pass. HTTPS, encryption and signatures are everywhere. > 1997 "E-postage is a good thing" What does that mean exactly? > 1998 "The skunk is, like Microsoft, an exquisite survival machine" That's not even a prediction > 1999 "Linux will fizzle against Windows" Kinda did in the desktop space, it did great by moving into all sorts of mobile devices and the cloud.
- pjc50 4y ago
  "E-postage is a good thing": over the decades, many people have tried to solve spam by charging for messages. This always fails, as people vastly prefer to switch to a free system, whose network effects then dominate. It's weakly linked to cryptocurrency. One of the early schemes was "proof of waste" for sending email, where you'd have to show some expensive mining-like calculation to send an email. Occasionally cryptocurrency people try to suggest charging for email or social media posts again.
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    There's actually a bigger problem with e-postage: even if people switched to it, spammers are already using compromised machines and accounts for sending spam, so it won't stop them

dale_glass 4y ago

> 1991 "Microsoft is abusing its monopoly" Not really a prediction, more of a fact > 1994 "What the Internet needs now is more competition among greedy entrepreneurs" Competition is definitely good. > 1996 "Everything on the Internet should be strongly encrypted all the time" That pretty much came to pass. HTTPS, encryption and signatures are everywhere. > 1997 "E-postage is a good thing" What does that mean exactly? > 1998 "The skunk is, like Microsoft, an exquisite survival machine" That's not even a prediction > 1999 "Linux will fizzle against Windows" Kinda did in the desktop space, it did great by moving into all sorts of mobile devices and the cloud.

pjc50 4y ago
"E-postage is a good thing": over the decades, many people have tried to solve spam by charging for messages. This always fails, as people vastly prefer to switch to a free system, whose network effects then dominate. It's weakly linked to cryptocurrency. One of the early schemes was "proof of waste" for sending email, where you'd have to show some expensive mining-like calculation to send an email. Occasionally cryptocurrency people try to suggest charging for email or social media posts again.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  There's actually a bigger problem with e-postage: even if people switched to it, spammers are already using compromised machines and accounts for sending spam, so it won't stop them