Software Doesn't Rot, But What If It Could?

neverreadpassively.blogspot.com

5 points·jasonb05··3 comments

"I want the process of reading news to be like an old friend telling me gossip that he will think I'm interested in hearing."

Do you know such sites? I'd love to read like this too.

This isn't exactly the same, but here's something that comes close:

I have a young son, and we watch a lot of Netflix instant movies. We've watched everything from Voltron episodes to Matilda. Yesterday, we wanted to watch a new (to him) movie, and after logging in to Netflix, I found that the most prominent link on the page was "Movies for 8-10 Year Olds." I never had to tell Netflix what we usually watch, or ask for recommendations. It just knew, and provided us with a list of films that (almost, with the exception of the cheesy religious cartoons for kids) exactly met our criteria.

He picked Time Bandits, and he loved it. If more sites offered content in the same way, they'd have legions of fans. Meanwhile, over at Amazon, I get recommendations for strollers and baby toys, despite the fact that I generally buy toys for an older kid.

I think it would be great if it did. For most people (perhaps I am taking the developer viewpoint though).

In cases of embedded (like old phones, old TVs etc), well, I wouldn't not want it to actually rot (in that case the environment in which the software runs has not changed).

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