3 ms·

Yeah, I think a big part of how Gates and others came into their view was that there were so many examples like Nintendo where a platform vendor had artificiall

Yeah, I think a big part of how Gates and others came into their view was that there were so many examples like Nintendo where a platform vendor had artificially limited the third party ecosystem and it constrained the success of the platform as a whole. Basically, the Gates view was the more "correct" one for the 1980s/1990s. At that time, most people did not own personal computers, even many businesses didn't, and growth came from on-boarding these non-users. The more apps available on your platform, the more likely a non-user would be to see a reason to buy a computer at all. Also, the platform Gates was selling was much cheaper to try. Today, everyone owns at least one computing device. Platforms aren't competing for non-users (there are none left), they are competing for users of other platforms. The Jobs view works better in that world since it improves platform quality perceptions.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Only if the users can be satisfied by the supposedly higher quality software, produced by devs willing to pay the Apple tax and unafraid of being Sherlock-ed If your need was niche then go away.
- fulladder 3y ago
  There are only two smartphone platforms, and both of them have app stores and make other efforts to control the overall end user experience. What do you disagree with?
  - tomrod 3y ago
    I'm scratching my head what besides F-Droid and Altstore are available for smartphone platforms. Unless you mean the OS itself.
fulladder 3y ago
By the way, there is no particular reason why the computer field had to go in this direction. If you look at the history of aviation, there were a lot of kit airplanes in the 1920s and 1930s because people thought that over time more and more people were going to want to own an airplane. That turned out to be wrong. Most people are content to pay somebody else to transport them. Saas is the computing equivalent of an airline, and it's very popular, but it hasn't fully displaced individual computer ownership. We'll see what happens long term.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Saas [...] hasn't fully displaced individual computer ownership. The writing is on the wall though, isn't it? Even companies that you'd expect to go all-in on user freedom and ownership have locked down their platforms and ratcheted up the service offerings. Not a single FAANG company is willing to take a definitive stand in defense of their users. They all just see a bottom line waiting to be butchered. And for most users, I'd wager SaaS has displaced computer ownership. Stuff like the App Store, Play Store and even game consoles are ultimately a service unto themselves. Even disregarding that, the "happy path" of modern software is paved far away from user empowerment. People are generally more willing to pay for a subscription than to switch to a more convenient hardware platform.
  - fulladder 3y ago
    > The writing is on the wall though, isn't it? I'm really not sure. Five years ago, I thought that SaaS would completely replace local computing. Now, I'm less certain. Yes, SaaS is very popular and there are far fewer local applications now. However, there still seems to be some value in local applications because it's thought to be a better end user experience. Look at Slack. It started out as a website, pure browser-based SaaS. Over time they developed a local app, which is basically the same Javascript but packaged up as a local Electron app. This seems to be regarded as superior to the web version for most people. Consider Zoom. There was initially a native client and an equivalent web version. They seem to be actually killing off the web version now -- access to it is a non-default option for the meeting creator, buried on a screen with 100+ meeting settings nobody understands or reads. They apparently want to be a local-only program. As long as there is demand for local apps, people will continue owning general purpose, re-programmable microcomputers. Maybe the vendor can lock you out of some low-level stuff like Intel ME or the BIOS, but these platforms are still allowing people to download a compiler and run their own programs directly on the metal. I'm not sure what direction it will ultimately go, but my hunch is that if it were possible for SaaS to 100% displace local computing, it would have already happened.
    - smoldesu 3y ago

paulryanrogers 3y ago

Only if the users can be satisfied by the supposedly higher quality software, produced by devs willing to pay the Apple tax and unafraid of being Sherlock-ed If your need was niche then go away.

fulladder 3y ago
There are only two smartphone platforms, and both of them have app stores and make other efforts to control the overall end user experience. What do you disagree with?
- tomrod 3y ago
  I'm scratching my head what besides F-Droid and Altstore are available for smartphone platforms. Unless you mean the OS itself.

fulladder 3y ago

By the way, there is no particular reason why the computer field had to go in this direction. If you look at the history of aviation, there were a lot of kit airplanes in the 1920s and 1930s because people thought that over time more and more people were going to want to own an airplane. That turned out to be wrong. Most people are content to pay somebody else to transport them. Saas is the computing equivalent of an airline, and it's very popular, but it hasn't fully displaced individual computer ownership. We'll see what happens long term.

smoldesu 3y ago
> Saas [...] hasn't fully displaced individual computer ownership. The writing is on the wall though, isn't it? Even companies that you'd expect to go all-in on user freedom and ownership have locked down their platforms and ratcheted up the service offerings. Not a single FAANG company is willing to take a definitive stand in defense of their users. They all just see a bottom line waiting to be butchered. And for most users, I'd wager SaaS has displaced computer ownership. Stuff like the App Store, Play Store and even game consoles are ultimately a service unto themselves. Even disregarding that, the "happy path" of modern software is paved far away from user empowerment. People are generally more willing to pay for a subscription than to switch to a more convenient hardware platform.
- fulladder 3y ago
  > The writing is on the wall though, isn't it? I'm really not sure. Five years ago, I thought that SaaS would completely replace local computing. Now, I'm less certain. Yes, SaaS is very popular and there are far fewer local applications now. However, there still seems to be some value in local applications because it's thought to be a better end user experience. Look at Slack. It started out as a website, pure browser-based SaaS. Over time they developed a local app, which is basically the same Javascript but packaged up as a local Electron app. This seems to be regarded as superior to the web version for most people. Consider Zoom. There was initially a native client and an equivalent web version. They seem to be actually killing off the web version now -- access to it is a non-default option for the meeting creator, buried on a screen with 100+ meeting settings nobody understands or reads. They apparently want to be a local-only program. As long as there is demand for local apps, people will continue owning general purpose, re-programmable microcomputers. Maybe the vendor can lock you out of some low-level stuff like Intel ME or the BIOS, but these platforms are still allowing people to download a compiler and run their own programs directly on the metal. I'm not sure what direction it will ultimately go, but my hunch is that if it were possible for SaaS to 100% displace local computing, it would have already happened.
  - smoldesu 3y ago