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To vastly oversimplify, this stuff happens in one of two ways: like email or like Facebook. (Like linux or like iOS. Like SQL or like SAP. Like the web browser

by kwindla 14y ago

To vastly oversimplify, this stuff happens in one of two ways: like email or like Facebook. (Like linux or like iOS. Like SQL or like SAP. Like the web browser or like Photoshop.) In other words, a standard protocol, plus adoption, creates lots of opportunities to make money as a service provider and by building capabilities that are extensions and integrations. On the other hand, a network-effects monopoly creates opportunities to scale by monetizing lots of users in a centralized way, and to play a gate-keeper role for other participants in the ecosystem. I can imagine "the next generation filesystem" work taking either form.

wmf 14y ago
I get the impression that things like email don't happen at all these days.
saurik 14y ago
Right; in fact: exactly. The challenge, again, is to come up with who will build it any why (or, to put it differently, who will pay for it, and again why). Additionally, as this is becoming increasingly interwoven in this thread: how further innovation of the core protocol will be funded. Really, my problem is that the original article comes off as a whine to the universe about something that isn't actually something that is fleshed out enough to happen. We've all had these ideas... some of us have even built companies trying. Most of these failed, with the successes remaining small due to an inability to effectively monetize the offering. That's why I use the term "challenge": if you want to write an article like this, it shouldn't just be "this would be cool": such a simplistic article is simply condescending to the numerous people (which may in fact be "all developers") who have had the same vision. (some unrelated-to-that-but-following-up-on-your-post parentheticals on innovation:) (Linux doesn't innovate what it means to be an operating system: the goal of that project is to be a world-class implementation of proven designs. The few interesting mechanisms they have added were taken from other dying environments, like Solaris.) (E-mail was an attempt to standardize a bunch of existing incompatible practice, and in the zillions of years since it was standardized, Exchange, Gmail, and Facebook are the only real examples of attempts to innovate on the design, and their innovations were possible due to gatekeeper benefits.)

by kwindla 14y ago

wmf 14y ago

I get the impression that things like email don't happen at all these days.

saurik 14y ago

Right; in fact: exactly. The challenge, again, is to come up with who will build it any why (or, to put it differently, who will pay for it, and again why). Additionally, as this is becoming increasingly interwoven in this thread: how further innovation of the core protocol will be funded. Really, my problem is that the original article comes off as a whine to the universe about something that isn't actually something that is fleshed out enough to happen. We've all had these ideas... some of us have even built companies trying. Most of these failed, with the successes remaining small due to an inability to effectively monetize the offering. That's why I use the term "challenge": if you want to write an article like this, it shouldn't just be "this would be cool": such a simplistic article is simply condescending to the numerous people (which may in fact be "all developers") who have had the same vision. (some unrelated-to-that-but-following-up-on-your-post parentheticals on innovation:) (Linux doesn't innovate what it means to be an operating system: the goal of that project is to be a world-class implementation of proven designs. The few interesting mechanisms they have added were taken from other dying environments, like Solaris.) (E-mail was an attempt to standardize a bunch of existing incompatible practice, and in the zillions of years since it was standardized, Exchange, Gmail, and Facebook are the only real examples of attempts to innovate on the design, and their innovations were possible due to gatekeeper benefits.)