4 ms·

One small tangent: “Microsoft realized how lucrative platforms are when it made a lot of money selling MS-DOS licenses in the 1980s, and we are all familiar wit

by hnbear 3y ago

One small tangent: “Microsoft realized how lucrative platforms are when it made a lot of money selling MS-DOS licenses in the 1980s, and we are all familiar with the history of Windows and Internet Explorer.” The story of Microsoft’s late 80s and 90s dominance is fading fast. My kids, now in the early to mid-teens, have grown up with Apple as the dominant phone, tablet and watch platform. All their friends have them. Here in the US (NY metro), Android seems a second rung system. Common but not poplar. They use Chromebooks and GSuite at school. Windows is an after thought. Even on the cheap Windows laptops we have for them at home they’re not really “Microsoft” machines. No Office, no heavy O365 anything. They’re terminals for Chrome and web-apps. The rest of the article is interesting, but user-developed improvements can be found in fun and interesting places. The same kids play Minecraft and Roblox heavily. My 12yo has made and sold Roblox clothing. It’s not “programming” or self-solving problems, but it’s interesting creation in a similar vein. Minecraft is full of people creating fantastic and interesting mods and improvements to it.

ido 3y ago
I know you probably know it, but ios dominance is very US-specific (+ maybe another small amount of other countries) situation. World-wide Android is much more popular than iOS (but less profitable, as the phones are cheaper).
- brookst 3y ago
  This is changing: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-os-market-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-os-ma... And for premium phones, iOS has had >50% market share for a long time: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-takes-62-premium-market-q1-2022/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-takes-62-premium-...
- hnbear 3y ago
  Yes, definitely, although what I meant to say, and forgot was that Android is the second mobile OS, and Microsoft doesn't even register.
j-bos 3y ago
Small caveat: Microsoft owns Minecraft and is prone to tightening control over it through the Bedrock edition.
- supernikio2 3y ago
  Not just bedrock; their grip has been tightening around Java edition too as of late.
sseagull 3y ago
I was talking to a co-worker recently. Some old friends at Microsoft had contacted us to see about some collaboration. Then it really hit me how much Microsoft is embedded: * University is switching to Microsoft from Google for mail/calendar * Some of us use Powerpoint for presentations, and a few docs are sometimes written in word * We certainly use Github a lot * We advertise/promote on LinkedIn * We sometimes take courses through LinkedIn Learning (paid by the university) * Now we could collaborate with them (?) * I use a Surface Pro Despite us being very heavy Linux users (like a lot of science), Microsoft is still everywhere.
- hnbear 3y ago
  Interesting - I get far more Google Docs links than O365, although that's just anecdata. MS is still around, and huge, but in a less obviously pervasive and all dominant way. LinkedIn isn't branded as MS, and I don't remember even seeing it mentioned anywhere. Same with Github. Contrasting with me original post about the MS of the 90s where there were few to no alternatives, and everything they produced was part of the one monolithic Wintel PC, now they're distributed and far more open. I know there's a worry about linux getting popular on Azure and then somehow screwed up by MS, I think that their quiet distribution is a sign they're less all powerful. Github users could move to Gitlab, Bitbucket (sort of), or self-host much easier than moving off MS used to be. LinkedIn is far less of "the way you use a PC" than any old MS product, and has a pretty specific niche market. It's huge, but it's not the invincibly moated. Socials come and go all the time. There are lots of LinkedInU alternatives too. I don't mean to say MS aren't huge or pervasive - they are. We're just so far on from their absolute dominance of all tech that people coming up on adulthood have no idea the world used to be MS or nothing. (For a given value of nothing, as a 90's Mac user).
supernikio2 3y ago
Your comment made me ponder and interesting thought: In my personal bubble most people use Android phones and Windows machines (lower income country than the US) which does show how different the world varies from person to person. At first, the "Windows is an afterthought" comment made me squirm inside, as in order to game or do anything remotely hardware intensive one would have to move over to a self-built machine, which means leveraging Windows or Linux. However, it does look like we are (perhaps not so slowly) moving towards an always-online world, in which everyone owns a dumb terminal to which they access powerful hardware on the cloud. Want to game? You can do so on NVidia's or Microsoft's hardware. Want to run a complex machine learning algorithm? Huggingface has got your back. I fear that's where we're moving toward, and in my opinion, takes away freedom from the end user.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Yep. It's dystopian as hell to me. And so many stakeholders are aligned towards it. Dumb terminals that sign in to a persistent account are easy and cheap for users. Companies are in control, enjoying DRM and analytics like never before. Governments can surveil their citizens more deeply than ever by subpoena of the cloud company. But there's some hopium that, with things like homomorphic encryption, you could have the best of both worlds: cloud connectivity and privacy.
hospitalJail 3y ago
>My kids, now in the early to mid-teens, have grown up with Apple as the dominant phone, tablet and watch platform. All their friends have them. Here in the US (NY metro), Android seems a second rung system. Apple exploits in-group bias among teens. This is less of a 'we moved to a closed ecosystem' and more of a 'my kids do whats kool among teenagers'. At the end of the day, the hardware and software are near clones of Androids. This is a move away from computers sure, but it doesnt have to do with closed stores. It has to do with insecure teenagers trying to be popular. > Even on the cheap Windows laptops we have for them at home they’re not really “Microsoft” machines. No Office, no heavy O365 anything. They’re terminals for Chrome and web-apps. But that is often how it starts. One day you need to run something locally, and you learn how the OS works. You learn about folder/file structures. You edit settings, you might even need to upgrade hardware. At worst I can see the future be phones/tablets/laptops logging into an external server to do 'computing'. You still will be accessing programs and data on the computers with lots of control. Isnt that the point?
jrm4 3y ago
Interesting you mention Minecraft and Roblox, mostly because they're simultaneously 1) WAY better than a closed walled garden like e.g. Nintendo and also 2) Completely garbage as compared to what they could be. They both had the opportunity to step up and actually BE that "metaverse" that everyone was talking about and never took advantage. Roblox chose "let's just let kids do whatever, stack money, and if there's a bunch of garbage that comes with that, so be it." Minecraft chose extreme fragmentation and mediocrity. It's a wonder that MS hasn't run it into the ground completely, but also it's a wonder that they've done such a crap job with such a great opportunity.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Here in the US (NY metro), Android seems a second rung system. Common but not poplar. I am certain there are very large regional variations on this. In the part of the US where I am, Android is considered the "normal" thing. Apple devices are around, but a very small percentage of the population and there appears to be little or no social pressure to prefer them.

by hnbear 3y ago

ido 3y ago

I know you probably know it, but ios dominance is very US-specific (+ maybe another small amount of other countries) situation. World-wide Android is much more popular than iOS (but less profitable, as the phones are cheaper).

brookst 3y ago
This is changing: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-os-market-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-os-ma... And for premium phones, iOS has had >50% market share for a long time: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-takes-62-premium-market-q1-2022/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-takes-62-premium-...
hnbear 3y ago
Yes, definitely, although what I meant to say, and forgot was that Android is the second mobile OS, and Microsoft doesn't even register.

j-bos 3y ago

Small caveat: Microsoft owns Minecraft and is prone to tightening control over it through the Bedrock edition.

supernikio2 3y ago
Not just bedrock; their grip has been tightening around Java edition too as of late.

sseagull 3y ago

I was talking to a co-worker recently. Some old friends at Microsoft had contacted us to see about some collaboration. Then it really hit me how much Microsoft is embedded: * University is switching to Microsoft from Google for mail/calendar * Some of us use Powerpoint for presentations, and a few docs are sometimes written in word * We certainly use Github a lot * We advertise/promote on LinkedIn * We sometimes take courses through LinkedIn Learning (paid by the university) * Now we could collaborate with them (?) * I use a Surface Pro Despite us being very heavy Linux users (like a lot of science), Microsoft is still everywhere.

hnbear 3y ago
Interesting - I get far more Google Docs links than O365, although that's just anecdata. MS is still around, and huge, but in a less obviously pervasive and all dominant way. LinkedIn isn't branded as MS, and I don't remember even seeing it mentioned anywhere. Same with Github. Contrasting with me original post about the MS of the 90s where there were few to no alternatives, and everything they produced was part of the one monolithic Wintel PC, now they're distributed and far more open. I know there's a worry about linux getting popular on Azure and then somehow screwed up by MS, I think that their quiet distribution is a sign they're less all powerful. Github users could move to Gitlab, Bitbucket (sort of), or self-host much easier than moving off MS used to be. LinkedIn is far less of "the way you use a PC" than any old MS product, and has a pretty specific niche market. It's huge, but it's not the invincibly moated. Socials come and go all the time. There are lots of LinkedInU alternatives too. I don't mean to say MS aren't huge or pervasive - they are. We're just so far on from their absolute dominance of all tech that people coming up on adulthood have no idea the world used to be MS or nothing. (For a given value of nothing, as a 90's Mac user).

supernikio2 3y ago

Your comment made me ponder and interesting thought: In my personal bubble most people use Android phones and Windows machines (lower income country than the US) which does show how different the world varies from person to person. At first, the "Windows is an afterthought" comment made me squirm inside, as in order to game or do anything remotely hardware intensive one would have to move over to a self-built machine, which means leveraging Windows or Linux. However, it does look like we are (perhaps not so slowly) moving towards an always-online world, in which everyone owns a dumb terminal to which they access powerful hardware on the cloud. Want to game? You can do so on NVidia's or Microsoft's hardware. Want to run a complex machine learning algorithm? Huggingface has got your back. I fear that's where we're moving toward, and in my opinion, takes away freedom from the end user.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Yep. It's dystopian as hell to me. And so many stakeholders are aligned towards it. Dumb terminals that sign in to a persistent account are easy and cheap for users. Companies are in control, enjoying DRM and analytics like never before. Governments can surveil their citizens more deeply than ever by subpoena of the cloud company. But there's some hopium that, with things like homomorphic encryption, you could have the best of both worlds: cloud connectivity and privacy.

hospitalJail 3y ago

>My kids, now in the early to mid-teens, have grown up with Apple as the dominant phone, tablet and watch platform. All their friends have them. Here in the US (NY metro), Android seems a second rung system. Apple exploits in-group bias among teens. This is less of a 'we moved to a closed ecosystem' and more of a 'my kids do whats kool among teenagers'. At the end of the day, the hardware and software are near clones of Androids. This is a move away from computers sure, but it doesnt have to do with closed stores. It has to do with insecure teenagers trying to be popular. > Even on the cheap Windows laptops we have for them at home they’re not really “Microsoft” machines. No Office, no heavy O365 anything. They’re terminals for Chrome and web-apps. But that is often how it starts. One day you need to run something locally, and you learn how the OS works. You learn about folder/file structures. You edit settings, you might even need to upgrade hardware. At worst I can see the future be phones/tablets/laptops logging into an external server to do 'computing'. You still will be accessing programs and data on the computers with lots of control. Isnt that the point?

jrm4 3y ago

Interesting you mention Minecraft and Roblox, mostly because they're simultaneously 1) WAY better than a closed walled garden like e.g. Nintendo and also 2) Completely garbage as compared to what they could be. They both had the opportunity to step up and actually BE that "metaverse" that everyone was talking about and never took advantage. Roblox chose "let's just let kids do whatever, stack money, and if there's a bunch of garbage that comes with that, so be it." Minecraft chose extreme fragmentation and mediocrity. It's a wonder that MS hasn't run it into the ground completely, but also it's a wonder that they've done such a crap job with such a great opportunity.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Here in the US (NY metro), Android seems a second rung system. Common but not poplar. I am certain there are very large regional variations on this. In the part of the US where I am, Android is considered the "normal" thing. Apple devices are around, but a very small percentage of the population and there appears to be little or no social pressure to prefer them.