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Comment by derwiki | Hacker News Reader

Gates: made computing ubiquitous; I've seen Windows boxes in rural towns in 3rd world countries Goldman Sachs & Co: "bunch of cash-driven assholes"

I think Gates has done considerable more good for the world than the other assholes of the business world.

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I have great respect for how Gates is spending his money now.

But, in all seriousness, Windows (including Office etc.) is morally questionable. Grant me two points:

First, it could be better without serious harm to its success. Over the last 15 years, Microsoft could have funded security and usability a bit more and saturation advertising a bit less, and it would have the same market share but save its users something like 10% of their use time.

Second, it hasn’t competed ethically. Microsoft under Gates did things that were only slightly to its medium-term benefit and very much to the detriment of the market. Many products that were clearly better for the user never got a fair shake. Cutthroat capitalism has its place, but Gates went further.

Given these, the opportunity cost of Windows adds up to a huge amount of inefficiency – time spent needlessly fighting computers – for which Gates is significantly responsible.

Some back-of-the-envelope math: If Windows has an install base of 1 billion, and the average install is used for 4 hours a day, that’s about 150 million Windows-years per year. If Gates is personally responsible for 1% inefficiency there, that’s about 1.5 million person-years of waste per year.

Would that particular time and effort have cured cancer? Or made the Linux kernel twice as good? No. But it’s still a lot to waste.

I’m trying not to be glib. I know it’s not original to say that Windows sucks. My point is that when something really big sucks preventably, we’re talking about significant amounts of resources burning away, and that has a moral dimension. More power to Gates as he eradicates malaria, but as far as I’m concerned he started with a big debt to society.

Wait, so if a computer saves me 4 hours a day in efficiency, but could have saved me 4 hours 10 minutes with better design, the person who gave it to me is indebted to me for those 10 minutes?

This is why my second premise is important. The person who sold it to you and unfairly prevented others from selling you a better one does, arguably, owe you something.

I’m not saying Gates owes us all a perfect operating system. But by doing a worse job than he could and distorting the market (if you agree to both of those), he screwed up.

Your argument seems to imply that if someone does design a perfect operating system, it's OK to distort the market to make it successful.

Well, if there is a perfect operating system out there and some inefficiency in the market is preventing it from being widely adopted, then yeah it's hard to argue against distorting the market to make it successful. The market is a tool, after all, not an end in itself.

> Microsoft under Gates did things that were only slightly to its medium-term benefit and very much to the detriment of the market.

If Microsoft would have delivered sexy / functional products, nobody would have noticed ... not only that, but they would have a legion of people defending them.

Unfortunately they preferred to make partnerships with companies like Intel, Compaq or HP, favoring IBM-compatible PCs, or hardware that was more open / accessible, putting a lot of control in the hands of hardware companies.

Maybe it was IBM breathing down their necks, maybe it made sense for their business, but if this didn't happen Windows NT would've been released as a consumer version instead of Win 9x ... which is the main culprit of almost all problems associated with Windows.

And I don't know what "big debt to society" you're talking about ... in '95 in my (arguably third world country) I live in schools in small towns had computer-labs with Microsoft software on it. If IBM-compatible PCs weren't so popular (with MS software contributing a lot to that) or free to clone, we wouldn't have had local companies producing cheap computers, and thus we wouldn't have had computers in school (and I wouldn't be a software developer for that matter).

IMHO, I see a lot of double-standards flying around.

This is why my first premise is important. I’m asking you to accept that Windows could have been better without serious harm to its success. I’m blaming Gates more for things like security and usability than for an approach to hardware platforms. If you disagree, I’d be interested to know why.

Basically, I recognize the huge benefit to society that Microsoft was involved with. What I’m asking is whether they used the huge opportunities they got (by hook or by crook) as well as should be expected.

(“Third world”, incidentally, originally meant countries that were unaligned in the Cold War, and has no clear meaning when it comes to poverty or human development.)

Unfortunately it's probably impossible to prove that no one would have taken IBM and Microsoft's places. I highly doubt that, had IBM not made the PC and Microsoft not bought QDOS, we wouldn't have had a PC revolution. I think it just would've been different, maybe with more competition, maybe with an Apple monopoly and Amiga occupying the margins, but it still would've happened.

The value of Windows is not in itself, but in the applications that run on it. The greater the market share of Windows, the greater the utility of the applications. The greater the market share of Windows, the greater the incentive for applications to be created for it.

So, to be contrary, their monopoly was good. See also the iPhone.

Your point is invalid, and is in fact a much better argument for open standards, which don't require a predatory monopoly to benefit the ecosystem.

Consider: The value of TCP is not in itself, but in the applications that run on it. The greater the market share of TCP, the greater the utility of the applications. The greater the market share of TCP, the greater the incentive for applications to be created for it.

----

The value of Posix is not in itself, but in the applications that run on it. The greater the market share of Posix, the greater the utility of the applications. The greater the market share of Posix, the greater the incentive for applications to be created for it.

Yes we tried that, it was called the Unix Wars.

I have great respect for how Gates is spending his money now.

Indeed. http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/bill-gates-tours-bihar-by-boa.... Its heartening to see him taking great measures to see his wealth is well spent.

Honestly, it feels a bit weird to be ranting pro-Gates -- I spent most of my high school years despising him because of Windows (I did tech support for 4 years). I agree with you that while Gates did advance computing, if he hadn't, someone else would have -- and possibly do it better. Or do it worse.

The "hours wasted" argument doesn't hold a lot of traction for me. As anecdotal evidence, I believe I saw a statistic that "House" is watched by over 300 million people globally -- that's 300m * 42 minutes _per week_. (Clay Shirky has a great article about mankind's surplus hours and how they're wasted in television).

I love that article; I just re-read it, and maybe it’s what made me put my point in terms of hours. And I as I said, those particular hours were probably not hiding a miracle, just more of whatever people would have done anyway. But it’s still a lot to waste.

At least people choose to watch House. It’s not actively sabotaging other shows and then shipping with glaring, time-wasting bugs.

Well, it would have all happened without Gates, and we'd all generally have software of better quality. Gates did a lot for himself and his shareholders, which I guess is the point of business - he didn't do so much for the world of computing.

That said, sure, Microsoft is a lot better than the businesses that merely push cash around and take a stack for themselves in the process.

I really don't think you can say that Gates or MS made any breakthroughs in making computing ubiquitous. They were in business for a BASIC interpreter[1], created an empire based on monopoly and questionable ethics and frankly could not care less about the philosophy that paved the way for ubiquitous computing(that still is far from existing.)

If you want to give credit, give it to people who did the deeds to deserve it. People like Alan Kay, Doug Engelbart, Ivan Sutherland, Seymour Papert[2].

[1] http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/

[2] http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html

How does saying go? Pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land.

I always thought Intel was under-appreciated and under-noticed, though maybe they prefer it that way.

Clearly the revolution that started with the first tube in 1908 and progressed to fancier tubes, to transistors, to what we have today, points more to Intel than Microsoft.

Compare yourself and see that they are pretty big and content to stay out of the limelight: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=INTC+Key+Statistics vs. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT+Key+Statistics

Do you think computing would not have become ubiquitous without Gates? Or that it's likely to have taken significantly longer?

Though it's popular to bash them these days, investment banking firms are an absolutely essential part of our economy.

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