2 ms·

The "weaponization of complexity" as you call it is simply "work is done by those who show up". Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, etc took the horribly dastar

The "weaponization of complexity" as you call it is simply "work is done by those who show up". Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, etc took the horribly dastardly approach of "participating" and then "doing the work". The horror. Microsoft gave up because it wasn't worth it when someone else was willing to do the work. It was not something that was adding value to them by them doing it themselves anymore. It's hilarious to try to pain this as some evil dastardly thing where they badly tried to keep up and just failed because it's just so hard and costly vs something where it just wasn't worth them paying for because they didn't derive enough value from it. Remind me which earnings call it was where they were saying "you know, we are going to issue rough q4 guidance because we think it's going to be really hard to implement these next 3 CSS features" The cost of keeping up for them, even now, if they started again, would be a rounding error in any MS VP's overall equity refresh budget (IE the money they are giving out in stock per year to employees in their org). So please, let's not pretend it's too "hard" or "expensive" for them. In the end, the world is 99% built by those who show up and do it. That's how this "weaponization of complexity" happened - people showed up and tried to solve problems. The world evolved. They tried to keep moving forward as that happened. If you think you can do it better, or that it doesn't need to be this complex, or whatever, awesome. show up and do it, like everyone else did. The world has never been built by those throwing rocks from the sidelines, no matter how much they want it to be, and no matter how much they try to paint the hard problem-solving work of others as "weaponization of complexity". Calling it that is just plain lazy. Almost all improvements and backwards compatibility shims make it harder for someone else to implement from scratch. That's because the primary goal is usually to help users. I mean, why stop with the web with this argument? How come the Go folks weaponized the Go language by adding generics? By making it harder for me to implement my own, they've weaponized it against me! I can't believe nobody has stopped their dastardly deeds.

zanderwohl 2y ago
This reads like a semi-incoherent essay from someone who doesn't really understand what complexity is and has a chip on their shoulder about something completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
- soulbadguy 2y ago
  Yeah and coming from someone with so much experience and industry knowledge as dannybee i find that perspective very puzzling. Just painting the situation as well google have influence because they work the hardest is just bizare. Having been in some standard / comity meetings. Everyone in those room work very hard... but someone hard work is not enough
  - DannyBee 2y ago
    The latter is definitely true, and i don't claim otherwise. But that's not actually the argument really being made here with any evidence. That would be a reasonable argument, but it's also always true - we are human, not robots, that's how humans work in any group setting. So it's not particularly interesting or particular to this that social and other things matter as much as pure technical merit or hard work. But again, this isn't the argument the post makes. Instead, in this case, the argument being made is (basically) "Nobody in those rooms is operating in good faith, they are instead deliberately trying to make it harder for newcomers. They also only have any power at all through illegitimate means in the first place". I do not believe any of this to be true.
- DannyBee 2y ago
  Cool, want to actually engage, or are you also going to just throw rocks from the sidelines?
soulbadguy 2y ago
Money and resource are not the problem nor the reason microsoft gave up on their own browser engine. Same as why they gave up on mobile. No reasonable amount of engineering resources would have made a dent in the problem. What OP is calling "weaponization of complexity" is just the asymmetry of effort required between new comers and entrenched players. You would have to be naive to think that google would just open their arms and kumbaya with microsoft to do the "hard work" We have seen this played out in any industry in history. Sometime hard work is not enough and it's easy to abuse dominant position to grid lock a market. The rest of your post frankly sounds like someone who is drunk on the usual company cooliad. > The end goal is to help user No. The end goal is to make money. Sometime it requires helping user, other time a bunch of anti competitive ( forcing android oem to prevent meaningful forks)and anti consumer (like playing hard ball with ad blockers) BS. >The world has never been built by those throwing rocks from the sidelines, no matter how much they want it to be, and no matter how much they try to paint the hard problem-solving work of others as "weaponization of complexity So much wrong with this. And is just a strawman. OP is not saying that it's not hard problem solving. The point is the solution achieved is self serving and sucks for the rest of us. > In the end, the world is 99% built by those who show up and do it. That's how this "weaponization of complexity" happened - people showed up and tried to solve problems. The world evolved. They tried to keep moving forward as that happened. Yeah no. History disagree with you
- DannyBee 2y ago
  "No reasonable amount of engineering resources would have made a dent in the problem. What OP is calling "weaponization of complexity" is just the asymmetry of effort required between new comers and entrenched players." This literally makes no sense. What does it mean to have a high asymmetry but somehow, "no amount" can make a dent in the problem. The claim in the OP is about engineering effort, not about "it's hard to get people to want your product" or whatever. So what exactly are you trying to say here? "You would have to be naive to think that google would just open their arms and kumbaya with microsoft to do the "hard work"" I mean, i was there for Google, with plenty of others, and I know what we were thinking, because I was partially in charge of it? Please, tell me more about what I and others were thinking. Were you there? Do you have any data or evidence? The naive thing is usually thinking people on the internet with no actual knowledge won't make up a history that suits their narrative. "No. The end goal is to make money. Sometime it requires helping user, other time a bunch of anti competitive ( forcing android oem to prevent meaningful forks)and anti consumer (like playing hard ball with ad blockers) BS." Again, please produce evidence rather than conjecture. What actual first hand evidence are you presenting here? (IE not opinions of random internet people who were not involved in any way). There actually are some folks involved who have this view, but my experience is they are far outnumbered by those actually trying to help. But you haven't even gone so far as to provide evidence from one of these folks who does disagree with my view! "So much wrong with this. And is just a strawman. OP is not saying that it's not hard problem solving. The point is the solution achieved is self serving and sucks for the rest of us." If so much is wrong with it, describe it. You've also now switched arguments from "no amount of engineering will make a dent" to "i don't like the solution they engineered". Which is it, exactly? "Yeah no. History disagree with you" Then, again, it should be really easy to produce evidence of this from folks involved. Where is it?
fauigerzigerk 2y ago
I think the "weaponization of complexity" claim can only be understood in relation to the "gimping browsers to protect the App Store" counter claim. The situation is far more complex than three browser engines competing on a level playing field. "Showing up" is not even possible on iOS. And Firefox is funded by the maker of Chrome. I think all of this rhetoric that browser vendors use against each other has to be seen against the backdrop of their respective business models.

zanderwohl 2y ago

This reads like a semi-incoherent essay from someone who doesn't really understand what complexity is and has a chip on their shoulder about something completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

soulbadguy 2y ago
Yeah and coming from someone with so much experience and industry knowledge as dannybee i find that perspective very puzzling. Just painting the situation as well google have influence because they work the hardest is just bizare. Having been in some standard / comity meetings. Everyone in those room work very hard... but someone hard work is not enough
- DannyBee 2y ago
  The latter is definitely true, and i don't claim otherwise. But that's not actually the argument really being made here with any evidence. That would be a reasonable argument, but it's also always true - we are human, not robots, that's how humans work in any group setting. So it's not particularly interesting or particular to this that social and other things matter as much as pure technical merit or hard work. But again, this isn't the argument the post makes. Instead, in this case, the argument being made is (basically) "Nobody in those rooms is operating in good faith, they are instead deliberately trying to make it harder for newcomers. They also only have any power at all through illegitimate means in the first place". I do not believe any of this to be true.
DannyBee 2y ago
Cool, want to actually engage, or are you also going to just throw rocks from the sidelines?

soulbadguy 2y ago

Money and resource are not the problem nor the reason microsoft gave up on their own browser engine. Same as why they gave up on mobile. No reasonable amount of engineering resources would have made a dent in the problem. What OP is calling "weaponization of complexity" is just the asymmetry of effort required between new comers and entrenched players. You would have to be naive to think that google would just open their arms and kumbaya with microsoft to do the "hard work" We have seen this played out in any industry in history. Sometime hard work is not enough and it's easy to abuse dominant position to grid lock a market. The rest of your post frankly sounds like someone who is drunk on the usual company cooliad. > The end goal is to help user No. The end goal is to make money. Sometime it requires helping user, other time a bunch of anti competitive ( forcing android oem to prevent meaningful forks)and anti consumer (like playing hard ball with ad blockers) BS. >The world has never been built by those throwing rocks from the sidelines, no matter how much they want it to be, and no matter how much they try to paint the hard problem-solving work of others as "weaponization of complexity So much wrong with this. And is just a strawman. OP is not saying that it's not hard problem solving. The point is the solution achieved is self serving and sucks for the rest of us. > In the end, the world is 99% built by those who show up and do it. That's how this "weaponization of complexity" happened - people showed up and tried to solve problems. The world evolved. They tried to keep moving forward as that happened. Yeah no. History disagree with you

DannyBee 2y ago
"No reasonable amount of engineering resources would have made a dent in the problem. What OP is calling "weaponization of complexity" is just the asymmetry of effort required between new comers and entrenched players." This literally makes no sense. What does it mean to have a high asymmetry but somehow, "no amount" can make a dent in the problem. The claim in the OP is about engineering effort, not about "it's hard to get people to want your product" or whatever. So what exactly are you trying to say here? "You would have to be naive to think that google would just open their arms and kumbaya with microsoft to do the "hard work"" I mean, i was there for Google, with plenty of others, and I know what we were thinking, because I was partially in charge of it? Please, tell me more about what I and others were thinking. Were you there? Do you have any data or evidence? The naive thing is usually thinking people on the internet with no actual knowledge won't make up a history that suits their narrative. "No. The end goal is to make money. Sometime it requires helping user, other time a bunch of anti competitive ( forcing android oem to prevent meaningful forks)and anti consumer (like playing hard ball with ad blockers) BS." Again, please produce evidence rather than conjecture. What actual first hand evidence are you presenting here? (IE not opinions of random internet people who were not involved in any way). There actually are some folks involved who have this view, but my experience is they are far outnumbered by those actually trying to help. But you haven't even gone so far as to provide evidence from one of these folks who does disagree with my view! "So much wrong with this. And is just a strawman. OP is not saying that it's not hard problem solving. The point is the solution achieved is self serving and sucks for the rest of us." If so much is wrong with it, describe it. You've also now switched arguments from "no amount of engineering will make a dent" to "i don't like the solution they engineered". Which is it, exactly? "Yeah no. History disagree with you" Then, again, it should be really easy to produce evidence of this from folks involved. Where is it?

fauigerzigerk 2y ago

I think the "weaponization of complexity" claim can only be understood in relation to the "gimping browsers to protect the App Store" counter claim. The situation is far more complex than three browser engines competing on a level playing field. "Showing up" is not even possible on iOS. And Firefox is funded by the maker of Chrome. I think all of this rhetoric that browser vendors use against each other has to be seen against the backdrop of their respective business models.