5 ms·

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changi

by zkmon 1y ago

Why did we kill all that beautiful minimalism? Computers had enough gaming, entertainment and productivity back then. But the definition of "enough" kept changing. Like a carrot tied to stick attached to an animal.

echelon 1y ago
This is a silly question. It will never be enough until we can manipulate the fabric of space and time directly as gods and create entirely new universes and physics and live forever for an infinity infinities. The ratio of our infinitesimal, geologically small existence to the whole of the light cone and the observable universe - it is just a glimpse at the fractal of what will be enough to satiate our curiosity and desire.
- whoisyc 1y ago
  This. The same drive for betterment that made our species “kill such beautiful minimalism” was the one that lifted billions out of subsistence farming and 50% infant death rate, and will be the one to escape the destruction of planet earth by sun’s evolution. You cannot have one without the other.
  - smolder 1y ago
    There is societal improvement and then there is the huge amount of ego driven waste and externalized harm. Ideally, theoretically, we could have a lot of the former without a lot of the latter. In practice this ratio seems to be getting worse. Me-first attitudes are way up, profit is misunderstood as merit.
- bitlax 1y ago
  I don't think OP is asking whether we should give up looking for advances in astrophysics. OP is asking "why did we add all of these freaking popups and theme tweaks? They're distracting me from using my computer to make advances in astrophysics!" I'd say try Linux. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8T5pyGiTPdE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8T5pyGiTPdE
- psychoslave 1y ago
  Moving in that direction, even recursive infinities won't bring someone anywhere near satisfaction, contentment and delight. Curiosity and desire can be focused on minimalism and elegance of the smallest most essential cores of whatever is at stake.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
brudgers 1y ago
Youtube.
entropie 1y ago
> Computers had enough gaming Had they? I gamed in the 90s and I game now. And boy, its not even remotely the same and iam thrilled to see what comes next (hello, gta6)
- reconnecting 1y ago
  Simply because games these days are exactly designed to extract dopamine from people, and in the 90s they were mostly driven by pain.
- ascagnel_ 1y ago
  Games are now infinitely more complex -- I can run an improved version of Ultima VII (1992) on a device that fits in my pocket, while the original wouldn't have run on this (it required a 486 and even the latest possible Tandy systems maxed out at the 386), and that's not even getting into stuff like Factorio or Satisfactory.
  - pixelpoet 1y ago
    Gentle reminder that Ultima VII was probably the best period-relative RPG until Baldur's Gate 3, even considering Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age :) No words for how this game blew my mind back in those days...
    - sersi 1y ago
      Personally I'd put Planescape: Torment in consideration but yes Ultima VII is great.
    - ascagnel_ 1y ago
      That's my point -- the onward march of technology means that not only can I continue playing U7, the work of passionate fans has made it so that I can play an improved version (higher perceptual frame rate, higher resolution, better and more consistent sound, etc) that takes advantage of the improved hardware on a device I bring with me everywhere.
throw10920 1y ago
Objectively speaking, computers back in the 90's were not capable of organizing the information that a single human being would be interested in, let alone the information of a community or state or country or the world. I am happy with the potential that we have available today to do things that we couldn't in the past. And it's always possible to improve software on top of more capable hardware and OSes.
brookst 1y ago
This is more commentary on the nature of personality and taste than of computers. It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990.
- pxc 1y ago
  > It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990. Is it? I think there's a common tendency to "stop exploring" cultural artifacts very deeply as we age, but not everyone shares this trait. Some people continue to value novelty in those areas well into old age. For my part, treasured artifacts of my youth don't impede my ability to appreciate new things. And indeed, I think many videogames I loved dearly have aged poorly.
  - brookst 1y ago
    Sure, human nature isn’t homogeneous. Empathy is human nature, but some lack it. The drive to reproduction is human nature, I’ve never felt it. But in general observation tells me that people cling to the world as it was in their relative youth.
- nancyminusone 1y ago
  I don't think nostalgia is the only factor here. If it were, then no young people would be interested in old computers, which I have found not to be the case.
- gunalx 1y ago
  Objectively music was less massproduced, equal low quality slop in earlier years.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
reconnecting 1y ago
Asceticism doesn't generate revenue. That's why striving capital needs a population that consumes more, and fat in technologies is not an exception. Software in the '90s was mostly driven by altruism, software in '20s starts with an A-round.
- psychoslave 1y ago
  What's an A round?
  - deathanatos 1y ago
    The first funding round for a startup. "Series A", "Series B", etc. (… although there are sometimes "seed" rounds that precede a series A, or even pre-seed rounds … like everything else, it's complicated & messy. But hopefully you see the metaphor the parent was trying to paint.)
    - psychoslave 1y ago
      Are there good resources to learn about this?
      - reconnecting 1y ago
        Perhaps you can learn more about this from executing the following command: echo "https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=44286820 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=44286820" | cut -d'/' -f3
zkmon 1y ago
I think business competition has killed the minimality. Because minimality doesn't sell as a quality. Competitor would throw more power and more features into the market. It is not driven by the need for such power or features. Consumer is forced to move to a bloated product as minimal products are removed or made extinct due to incompatible ecosystem.
grishka 1y ago
Because high-speed internet became omnipresent. The act of making a software release stopped having a cost associated with it, like having to print CDs and ship them to stores. Software transitioned from meaningful releases, each of which needed to be as bug-free as possible and had to be sold to users as a genuine meaningful upgrade, to this pathetic eternal beta we now have. Also because everyone seems too scared to practice adversarial interoperability. Also because SoCs are now a thing which allows unhackable secure boot and other DRM-like functionality that prevents people from modifying their own devices to act in their own interest, or, as is the case with Android devices, allows it but punishes the user for having gained full access to their own device.
29athrowaway 1y ago
On Linux you can customize your UI to achieve any look you want. - A Windows 3.1 window manager theme - The Windows 3.1 fonts with font hinting/antialiasing disabled - Windows 3.1 icons - A matching cursor theme - Lower your display resolution
- gond 1y ago
  I wish this would be the solution. What I would like specifically for Linux are alternative desktop environments like the resurrected CDE. Themes don’t update well and are in my experience, sluggish.
  - 29athrowaway 1y ago
    Try this - XFCE - Bluecurve theme for GTK, cursors, XFWM4: https://github.com/neeeeow/Bluecurve https://github.com/neeeeow/Bluecurve (scale the xpm files from the XFWM4 theme 2x: mogrify -resize 200% *.xpm) - Default Bluecurve theme font: Luxi Sans Regular - Tiled wallpaper from KDE 1: https://github.com/KDE/kde1-kdebase/blob/master/pics/wallpapers/absolute_zero.jpg https://github.com/KDE/kde1-kdebase/blob/master/pics/wallpap... (scale it 2x using a external tool, and use it tiled) - Icons: https://www.pling.com/p/1012233/ https://www.pling.com/p/1012233/ Once you are done you can listen to this to have a more immersive retro experience: https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=33496 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=3...
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - gond 1y ago
      Thanks!
kevingadd 1y ago
Modern technology has made it a lot easier to build video games or entertainment (music, movies, etc) affordably and in a reasonable amount of time. The diversity of entertainment out there for you to experience cheaply is incredible compared to the 90s or 00s, even if we lost some stuff like Flash along the way. Nearly 19000 games were released on Steam in 2024. A lot of the most interesting stuff that came out simply wouldn't have existed 10 or 20 years ago. I think it's great that those things can exist now and potentially find an audience.
knowitnone 1y ago
It's funny how you want minimalism yet another commenter commented about an experimental OS needing to have a modern UI to be relevant. Just can't win.

by zkmon 1y ago

echelon 1y ago

This is a silly question. It will never be enough until we can manipulate the fabric of space and time directly as gods and create entirely new universes and physics and live forever for an infinity infinities. The ratio of our infinitesimal, geologically small existence to the whole of the light cone and the observable universe - it is just a glimpse at the fractal of what will be enough to satiate our curiosity and desire.

whoisyc 1y ago
This. The same drive for betterment that made our species “kill such beautiful minimalism” was the one that lifted billions out of subsistence farming and 50% infant death rate, and will be the one to escape the destruction of planet earth by sun’s evolution. You cannot have one without the other.
- smolder 1y ago
  There is societal improvement and then there is the huge amount of ego driven waste and externalized harm. Ideally, theoretically, we could have a lot of the former without a lot of the latter. In practice this ratio seems to be getting worse. Me-first attitudes are way up, profit is misunderstood as merit.
bitlax 1y ago
I don't think OP is asking whether we should give up looking for advances in astrophysics. OP is asking "why did we add all of these freaking popups and theme tweaks? They're distracting me from using my computer to make advances in astrophysics!" I'd say try Linux. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8T5pyGiTPdE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8T5pyGiTPdE
psychoslave 1y ago
Moving in that direction, even recursive infinities won't bring someone anywhere near satisfaction, contentment and delight. Curiosity and desire can be focused on minimalism and elegance of the smallest most essential cores of whatever is at stake.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

brudgers 1y ago

Youtube.

entropie 1y ago

> Computers had enough gaming Had they? I gamed in the 90s and I game now. And boy, its not even remotely the same and iam thrilled to see what comes next (hello, gta6)

reconnecting 1y ago
Simply because games these days are exactly designed to extract dopamine from people, and in the 90s they were mostly driven by pain.
ascagnel_ 1y ago
Games are now infinitely more complex -- I can run an improved version of Ultima VII (1992) on a device that fits in my pocket, while the original wouldn't have run on this (it required a 486 and even the latest possible Tandy systems maxed out at the 386), and that's not even getting into stuff like Factorio or Satisfactory.
- pixelpoet 1y ago
  Gentle reminder that Ultima VII was probably the best period-relative RPG until Baldur's Gate 3, even considering Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age :) No words for how this game blew my mind back in those days...
  - sersi 1y ago
    Personally I'd put Planescape: Torment in consideration but yes Ultima VII is great.
  - ascagnel_ 1y ago
    That's my point -- the onward march of technology means that not only can I continue playing U7, the work of passionate fans has made it so that I can play an improved version (higher perceptual frame rate, higher resolution, better and more consistent sound, etc) that takes advantage of the improved hardware on a device I bring with me everywhere.

throw10920 1y ago

Objectively speaking, computers back in the 90's were not capable of organizing the information that a single human being would be interested in, let alone the information of a community or state or country or the world. I am happy with the potential that we have available today to do things that we couldn't in the past. And it's always possible to improve software on top of more capable hardware and OSes.

brookst 1y ago

This is more commentary on the nature of personality and taste than of computers. It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990.

pxc 1y ago
> It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990. Is it? I think there's a common tendency to "stop exploring" cultural artifacts very deeply as we age, but not everyone shares this trait. Some people continue to value novelty in those areas well into old age. For my part, treasured artifacts of my youth don't impede my ability to appreciate new things. And indeed, I think many videogames I loved dearly have aged poorly.
- brookst 1y ago
  Sure, human nature isn’t homogeneous. Empathy is human nature, but some lack it. The drive to reproduction is human nature, I’ve never felt it. But in general observation tells me that people cling to the world as it was in their relative youth.
nancyminusone 1y ago
I don't think nostalgia is the only factor here. If it were, then no young people would be interested in old computers, which I have found not to be the case.
gunalx 1y ago
Objectively music was less massproduced, equal low quality slop in earlier years.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

reconnecting 1y ago

Asceticism doesn't generate revenue. That's why striving capital needs a population that consumes more, and fat in technologies is not an exception. Software in the '90s was mostly driven by altruism, software in '20s starts with an A-round.

psychoslave 1y ago
What's an A round?
- deathanatos 1y ago
  The first funding round for a startup. "Series A", "Series B", etc. (… although there are sometimes "seed" rounds that precede a series A, or even pre-seed rounds … like everything else, it's complicated & messy. But hopefully you see the metaphor the parent was trying to paint.)
  - psychoslave 1y ago
    Are there good resources to learn about this?
    - reconnecting 1y ago
      Perhaps you can learn more about this from executing the following command: echo "https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=44286820 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=44286820" | cut -d'/' -f3

zkmon 1y ago

I think business competition has killed the minimality. Because minimality doesn't sell as a quality. Competitor would throw more power and more features into the market. It is not driven by the need for such power or features. Consumer is forced to move to a bloated product as minimal products are removed or made extinct due to incompatible ecosystem.

grishka 1y ago

Because high-speed internet became omnipresent. The act of making a software release stopped having a cost associated with it, like having to print CDs and ship them to stores. Software transitioned from meaningful releases, each of which needed to be as bug-free as possible and had to be sold to users as a genuine meaningful upgrade, to this pathetic eternal beta we now have. Also because everyone seems too scared to practice adversarial interoperability. Also because SoCs are now a thing which allows unhackable secure boot and other DRM-like functionality that prevents people from modifying their own devices to act in their own interest, or, as is the case with Android devices, allows it but punishes the user for having gained full access to their own device.

29athrowaway 1y ago

On Linux you can customize your UI to achieve any look you want. - A Windows 3.1 window manager theme - The Windows 3.1 fonts with font hinting/antialiasing disabled - Windows 3.1 icons - A matching cursor theme - Lower your display resolution

gond 1y ago
I wish this would be the solution. What I would like specifically for Linux are alternative desktop environments like the resurrected CDE. Themes don’t update well and are in my experience, sluggish.
- 29athrowaway 1y ago
  Try this - XFCE - Bluecurve theme for GTK, cursors, XFWM4: https://github.com/neeeeow/Bluecurve https://github.com/neeeeow/Bluecurve (scale the xpm files from the XFWM4 theme 2x: mogrify -resize 200% *.xpm) - Default Bluecurve theme font: Luxi Sans Regular - Tiled wallpaper from KDE 1: https://github.com/KDE/kde1-kdebase/blob/master/pics/wallpapers/absolute_zero.jpg https://github.com/KDE/kde1-kdebase/blob/master/pics/wallpap... (scale it 2x using a external tool, and use it tiled) - Icons: https://www.pling.com/p/1012233/ https://www.pling.com/p/1012233/ Once you are done you can listen to this to have a more immersive retro experience: https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=33496 https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=3...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - gond 1y ago
    Thanks!

kevingadd 1y ago

Modern technology has made it a lot easier to build video games or entertainment (music, movies, etc) affordably and in a reasonable amount of time. The diversity of entertainment out there for you to experience cheaply is incredible compared to the 90s or 00s, even if we lost some stuff like Flash along the way. Nearly 19000 games were released on Steam in 2024. A lot of the most interesting stuff that came out simply wouldn't have existed 10 or 20 years ago. I think it's great that those things can exist now and potentially find an audience.

knowitnone 1y ago

It's funny how you want minimalism yet another commenter commented about an experimental OS needing to have a modern UI to be relevant. Just can't win.