3 ms·

It's deeply frustrating to see people who resent giants because they're strong. MS did what anyone else would do in their position, inferior or not. This was n

It's deeply frustrating to see people who resent giants because they're strong. MS did what anyone else would do in their position, inferior or not. This was not a situation where everyone chose to wear potato sacks instead of Nike. Clothing is a stylistic and individualistic choice, whereas your business's OS, platform, and software have concerns of support, compatibility, interoperation, long-term stability, etc. Compatibility and interop are things that large software vendors simply can't uphold very well at all. Even if they were magnanimous, generous, 100% committed to interop with everything else, they would incur massive tech debt and support burdens to arrange for those things. So of course they build in unique features. Of course they make breaking changes. Of course they're ensuring you stay as a customer. More than that, if a business looks around and 9/10ths of their partners use FOOBAR WIDGETS, and 99% of their workforce is trained exclusively in FOOBAR WIDGETS, what widgets are they gonna choose? The network effect has been strong for choice of platform/software, and once a plurality was achieved, MS essentially had a commitment and responsibility to the business world to be their huckleberry. At that point, force isn't necessary when customers are clamoring to be let in to the club. Force isn't necessary when your labor pool is full of MCSEs competing with neckbeards who spit on Bill Gates.

dmonitor 2y ago
People don't hate MS because they're big. They hate them because they make shit software and are force people to use it with anti-competitive practices. If each of Microsoft's products had to compete individually, most of them would go the way of Windows Phone, Zune, Internet Explorer, and Xbox. Their few good products would benefit from this too by increasing interoperability with other software. They need to be broken up.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  > People don't hate MS because they're big. I'm sorry that you're blanket speaking for everyone else, because I certainly did. I hated MS because they were big, they were powerful, they were my father's favorite. I reviled Bill Gates because of his education and privilege and vision, and I renamed "win.com" to "lose.com" and plastered "Satan Inside" stickers on my AMD-processor machines that eventually ran Minix and OpenBSD. In college I became an arrogant Unix bigot, and I cultivated a distinct superiority complex, as if I could singlehandedly usher in The Year of Linux on the Desktop. Eventually I came to accept that it was just software; it was software that everyone else used just fine; and that a uniform installation of adequate software is better for the collective good than some idealistic, unachievable utopia of Richard Stallman's wet dreams.
  - dmonitor 2y ago
    Okay? Being a rabid schizo who grinds their teeth at non-foss software is obviously not healthy, but shit software is shit software regardless, and the government should intervene when market forces are being abused.
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      rabid schizo or corporate drone, which way western man?
- voytec 2y ago
  > most of them would go the way of Windows Phone, Zune, Internet Explorer, and Xbox As in, the first Xbox version or the whole line-up? Sony reports twice as much sales of their current gaming console in comparison to Xbox, but Xbox isn't dead like the rest of stuff you mentioned. (not a fanboy, my last Xbox was the 360 and then I had PS4 and now PS5)
  - dmonitor 2y ago
    The brand isn't doing so hot and is on the decline while their competing platforms (Steam, Playstation, Nintendo) are posting record numbers. They've started releasing their in-house developed games on their competitor's consoles because sales on their own platform are so abysmal. Analysts are saying it's likely that Xbox is going to exit the hardware business unless they can turn things around in the next console generation.

dmonitor 2y ago

People don't hate MS because they're big. They hate them because they make shit software and are force people to use it with anti-competitive practices. If each of Microsoft's products had to compete individually, most of them would go the way of Windows Phone, Zune, Internet Explorer, and Xbox. Their few good products would benefit from this too by increasing interoperability with other software. They need to be broken up.

AStonesThrow 2y ago
> People don't hate MS because they're big. I'm sorry that you're blanket speaking for everyone else, because I certainly did. I hated MS because they were big, they were powerful, they were my father's favorite. I reviled Bill Gates because of his education and privilege and vision, and I renamed "win.com" to "lose.com" and plastered "Satan Inside" stickers on my AMD-processor machines that eventually ran Minix and OpenBSD. In college I became an arrogant Unix bigot, and I cultivated a distinct superiority complex, as if I could singlehandedly usher in The Year of Linux on the Desktop. Eventually I came to accept that it was just software; it was software that everyone else used just fine; and that a uniform installation of adequate software is better for the collective good than some idealistic, unachievable utopia of Richard Stallman's wet dreams.
- dmonitor 2y ago
  Okay? Being a rabid schizo who grinds their teeth at non-foss software is obviously not healthy, but shit software is shit software regardless, and the government should intervene when market forces are being abused.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    rabid schizo or corporate drone, which way western man?
voytec 2y ago
> most of them would go the way of Windows Phone, Zune, Internet Explorer, and Xbox As in, the first Xbox version or the whole line-up? Sony reports twice as much sales of their current gaming console in comparison to Xbox, but Xbox isn't dead like the rest of stuff you mentioned. (not a fanboy, my last Xbox was the 360 and then I had PS4 and now PS5)
- dmonitor 2y ago
  The brand isn't doing so hot and is on the decline while their competing platforms (Steam, Playstation, Nintendo) are posting record numbers. They've started releasing their in-house developed games on their competitor's consoles because sales on their own platform are so abysmal. Analysts are saying it's likely that Xbox is going to exit the hardware business unless they can turn things around in the next console generation.