> As an early-adopter with sufficient income to afford whatever gadget you're talking about, I'm sure you found a lot of utility communicating with the <1% of o

> As an early-adopter with sufficient income to afford whatever gadget you're talking about, I'm sure you found a lot of utility communicating with the <1% of our population that shared your position and enthusiasm. The other 99% of us had land-lines. Only some of us had the internet. I can only assume this is a deliberate refusal to see my point. "Whatever gadget I'm talking about" was nearly every nokia or ericsson phone of the era -- and they interoperated, unlike facetime or whatsapp. Nice try invoking some kind of class war crap; I was engaging in video calls while I was a part-time cook at a diner. > I have no idea what you're talking about. Our society is now saturated with computers. We carry computers in our pockets that we casually call 'smart'. These devices are wirelessly connected in a global network that we casually call 'the internet'. Computing is so ubiquitous that we barely notice it anymore. Setting aside your poor attempt at sarcasm, the computers you are talking about are not general-purpose machines. Selecting a hardware platform today is largely selecting which walled garden you prefer. Ten years ago I could pick any hardware manufacturer and any software stack and have a reasonable chance at interoperating with other people who had made other decisions. That's not the case any more; hell, Apple Keynote won't even open files written by older versions of Apple Keynote. And none of the functionality you're talking about was absent in 2004. I had maps and navigation on a cellphone even then. >Yes, the retina display existed in some form: in low-contrast PDA displays. Yes, 4G and 100mps broadband existed in some form: as in, dial-up screeching. Yes, Reddit existed in some form, as in your local BBS. Your analogies are specious. I had a 1600x1200 15" laptop in 2001. I had DSL in 2001. I had internet web forums in 2001. Fast forward: resolution has gone up, DSL has got cheaper (100mbit fiber is available to a VANISHINGLY small subset of the population, mister 99%), and the number (not quality) of web forums have gone up. > Sometimes difference of degree are so great that they become differences of kind, This is something that only cheerleaders and PR directors say. A difference in degree is inevitable; a difference in kind is difficult. Oculus Rift is a perfect example. It's shitloads of hype surrounding no product, no market. It's a really neat gadget with very specific possibilities, just like the Virtual Boy was. It is not a revolution.