When VMware was first announced and demoed, the commenters at Slashdot declared things like it was fake, it was stupid, it was a waste, it would never work, or that dual booting was a better solution. They largely concluded that virtual machines weren't a thing and happily congratulated themselves for their brilliant insights.
I'm on a tablet or I'd dig the link out for you. It's one of my favorite discussion threads on the Internet.
So, to make it easier for you - I've grabbed a laptop and dug out the link:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/99/02/11/0939233/multiple-os...
I absolutely encourage anyone/everyone to read the linked comments. It's one of my favorite examples when a number of discussions come up.
My preferred time to reference it is when people say things like, "Slashdot used to be so much better!" Or when they say things like, "We had much better commentary back in the day!"
No, no they did not. In fact, it was never as good as people recall it being. That is kind of what makes it so wonderful and why I love discussion sites.
I am, by no means, innocent or superior. ;-)
Today's thread about Musk's "Hyperloop" is good fodder to bookmark and look back at in a decade. I have to wonder how many of the posters will admit they were wrong, should this reach fruition?
I dug the link out for another person who replied. You may want to take a look?
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/99/02/11/0939233/multiple-os...
There was a database glitch that messed up usernames (I think that was after they'd added accounts, my memory isn't that good so I'm not certain) but it's still an amusing read. It really is a good example for a variety of discussions. It's my favorite example, actually.
A few people actually understood and made comments, and some had seen a recent demo. Some speculated about patents and one was happy to point out that they had a whole notebook full of ideas. Some seemed to think the software could do things it couldn't actually do, and certainly not at that stage.
One person even complained that it wouldn't work for him because if his old hardware. Others complained that it didn't meet their needs. Some even seemed unhappy that it wasn't available to run on their obscure OS. Of course, they couldn't use a more popular OS and then virtualized their obscure OS.
Also, there are comments to complain about the site management, people insulting other people, and comments that hadn't a damned thing to do with the subject at hand.
For so few comments, it's like they managed to hit every stereotype. It's absolutely my favorite reference thread and it works for so many conversations. I actually made it a point to finally bookmark it on my tablet as I've been using it more than a laptop lately.
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
This sounds like such an insane proposition relative to the Dropbox we know today.
The top comment is being pedantic that it doesn’t technically replace a USB drive because you have to install software and have access to the Internet. Hilarious in retrospect.
If the biggest complaint someone can have is “you have to have Internet” you’re doing OK.
Does it? If you used WebDAV then you can mount a share in Windows or Linux even over the Internet, and windows at least is good at caching it while you're offline for short periods. For someone who has their own always-on Apache it seems like this would replicate most of the use cases for Dropbox. I think the point that's being missed is simply that most people would rather see a few ads or pay a small fee than administer their own Apache, not that what Dropbox offers is technically so far ahead.
I’m just guessing on numbers, but that probably describes <1% of the population. Most people think Apache is a word used only to describe helicopters.
I admit that it's just a guess, but it does seem likely.
Again, not a major point.
"Hacker News hated Dropbox so..." Is a fun trope, but Dropbox still isn't profitable ;)
In seriousness I bet a lot of us go though the thought process that we want to give constructive criticism, since positive feedback isn't super actionable.
Feeling smarter than the rich people is always a good feeling too (and cheap, since we aren't even betting our own money )