The End of Mobile | Hacker News Reader

The End of Mobile

ben-evans.com

33 pointsskilled15 comments

I think social news websites like HN should add an explicit clickbait counter and let users report it explicitly. Hopefully, we can get rid of this trend.

This is an awesome idea and would love this paired with a 'fluff' counter telling how much unnecessary fluff is around a key message of an article. In this case it's low.

I haven't actually read this particular article. I am generally speaking after reading comments.

-1. What a terrible, misleading, click-bait-ish headline. The article describes the exact opposite of what the headline suggests: that virtually every adult on the planet has a mobile device.

The article itself is simply the list of sources and methodology used to determine this fact. But headlining the article "everyone has a phone" would leave no reason to click.

Unfortunate to see that our best and brightest (Andreessen Horowitz) are no better than click-bait-ish spammers.

Or perhaps the title just went over your head.

Perhaps, but your comment doesn't offer any evidence that it did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

The End of History makes the case that there will no longer be huge leaps and bounds forward once the world all becomes a liberal democracy.

Not that nothing will ever happen again, but the big evolutionary changes and leaps and bounds will not happen anymore.

Unlike "Et-tu, ______" or "Let them eat ______", for example, "The End of ______" is far too generic, when standing alone (i.e. pre-click), for the reader to automatically expect a reference a 30-year-old, twice-revised, heavily-criticized (credibly) essay -- as opposed to the simple, literal definition that the thing is ending. Had this author titled his post "The End of History? (for mobile)" or "The End of Mobile and The Last Man," then maybe, maybe, I'd agree with you. It would be deceitful to title an article "The End of Climate Change Danger," for example, if that article was in fact arguing that it was inevitable that climate change will harm the planet significantly.

The original title "The End of History?" is itself click-bait, misdirecting readers with a provocative headline that relies on an already obscure, non-dictionary definition of "history." Had Fukuyama simply titled his article "All nations will eventually rule by Liberal Democracy," it would likely never have even been noticed.

I don't get why it'd be the "end" of mobile?

I think it's a reference to Fukuyama's "end of history." It's not that history or mobile computing reached their end, but that the significant conflicts between world views and computing platforms are over. In history, the West won the Cold War. In computing, mobile won.

I interpretted the title the same way. Link to the essay (1989) below. The book (1992) elaborated on the theme.

https://www.embl.de/aboutus/science_society/discussion/discu...

It's the end of growth in mobile, though he doesn't really make that explicit.

It's more clear if you put the quotes differently: the end of "mobile". Since it's mainstream, there's no reason to list it as a separate fringe category.

Yeah, it just means people are buying devices less frequently

"Mobile" (however defined) is obviously not going anywhere. I think it's just a click-bait headline

This is what happens if you don't impose a speed limit on hype trains. We're supposed to be at “the end” of <something> already again. As long as they don't raise entertainment tax for the dizziness resulting from the speed of fashion changes, I'll just ask for the pop corn and lean back.

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