This is the specific spot my suspension of disbelief broke: > innovation tokens are completely made up, it's like talking about the finite number of "love toke

This is the specific spot my suspension of disbelief broke: > innovation tokens are completely made up, it's like talking about the finite number of "love tokens" you can give your spouse in a given year. You can't complain that "'atmosphere' questions are extremely based in feelings" and then just get high on feelings like this. The amount of "love tokens" you can give your spouse in a year is absolutely finite, because they take time and attention. You can see easily this in the complaints that come in advice columns and relationship subs. And innovation tokens are no more made up than anything else. Time and attention are finite at work just as much as at home. Hackers didn't go anywhere. The solution to the puzzle is that hacking is an ethos not generally suited to creating profitable businesses. However, we've seen a massive expansion in business use of computers, and most of those businesses are trying to be profitable. Yes, a bunch of those early companies were populated by hackers because that's who knew how to use computers then. But the industry has changed as more and more people have seen it as a professional career, not a way to feed a hacking habit. Hacking is still alive and well if you know where to look for it. People are still doing lots of weird and wonderful things. But they are, thank goodness, not doing them as much at their day jobs. And as a person who has had to clean up other people's "play", I say: hooray! Play at home. Play in disposable playpens. Production is for shit that works.