Hacker News Reader

Comment by cloutchaser | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised you're getting downvoted, especially on HN. Bill Gates built one of the most anti competitive software businesses in the world, a lot of the profit was made from government contracts. He consciously destroyed competitors or made it impossible for them to operate.

I actually believe steve jobs when he says microsoft held back computer development by decades potentially.

Yet now he is some sort of god/genius for the elite. It's very nice that he's eliminating disease and helping with vaccines, but I just can't believe how much everyone's forgotten about his past.

And then there's the whole Epstein thing on top of that. I mean come on...

View on HN

The first chance Steve Jobs had to do so, he wrested control of computer software from the users and developers, and forced his company in as a middle-man taking a 30% cut from all software sold on their platform. Nice.

I think Apple coming out on top would have been worse for computer software and development.

> The first chance Steve Jobs had to do so, he wrested control of computer software

Are you kidding? He didn't wrestle anything. People chose to buy the iphone, and developers chose to develop for it. You can develop only for android if you want. Good luck developing for only linux in 1990.

As aggressive as Jobs could be, he did not force anything anywhere. The iphone is about as close you can come to a voluntarily purchased high end purchase as you get. It's a free choice. And it's a free choice to develop for iphone.

>You can develop only for android if you want. Good luck developing for only linux in 1990.

Don't pretend you are a retard, if you are a government or business that provides a website or mobile app you HAVE no REAL choice then to also target iOS.

If the local factory poisons the air you should move if you don't like it right? IF society(probably in EU and Asia) decides that Apple damages the "environment" they will be free to force Apple to do better or Apple will be free to exit.

He made conscious decisions across decades to disempower the aspects of hardware and software he didn't like, from trying to have the Apple II have two expansion slots for the bare essentials, for throwing the swing of the axe that killed Flash. Consumers still chose to buy it, developers still chose to develop for consumers, but part of the role of developers is to be informed voices when the consumer won't and to communicate complex issues accessibly (consumers didn't _know_ why they want more than two slots, but they used them when they had them!). Jobs had a powerful voice and chose when to use it to meet his own ends at the cost of the wider ecosystem.

Eliminating computing freedom on the machines people paid money for is not forcing? Where is my choice to have the high end iPhone hardware with my software running on it?

While I’m not disagreeing with you it’s worth point out there have been middle men in the software industry since it started, publishers and retailers have always taken their cut. Sometime totalling far more than 30%. Apple see themselves as a retailer of software, bricks and mortar retailers take a 30-50% cut of sales. Apple (and Jobs) clearly modelled the App Store on that.

That’s not to so say it’s right, the internet is meant to democratise society and remove these middle men. Apples cut should be significantly lower.

Had their positions been reversed, Steve Jobs would have been doing the exact same thing in the software industry.

You can look at Apple's behavior in spaces where they dominate to see that. Or are we expecting that they will open the floodgates tomorrow and allow additional app stores on the iPhone? And the only reason they haven't locked down their desktop operating system as tightly as their mobile operating system is users have expectations of how open a desktop should be to running what software they choose... Expectations largely established by the Microsoft ecosystem and the alternative it would offer if Apple tried to seal things up.

For some reason, when Apple does it, people think it's pro-consumer, and when Microsoft does it, it's anti-competitive. The legendary reality distortion field effect of Apple's CEO seems to have outlived him.

Their positions weren't reversed, and you don't know, and Jobs always hated the way Bill did business so you don't know that.

For a start, apple builds products that every single consumer made a choice to buy. And over 50% of them still choose android.

Bill gates went above almost all consumer's heads and sold windows to governments and big corporations, and then bundled their own software with it. It's part of the reason why the UX of windows was always so bad, because the end user wasn't making purchase decisions.

So no, I don't agree. Jobs hasn't been leading Apple for a long time. You don't know what he would have done, other than that he likes closed garden products. That's a long way from the anticompetitive behaviour that microsoft did over the years.

And again, window was like 95% of the market at it's peak. Apple is nowhere near that.

Ironically, among the reasons Microsoft did so well in the government and large corporate spaces is that Microsoft made the software, not the hardware. Corporations didn't trust that you could only run Apple's software on Apple hardware. They could see the vendor lock in and they didn't want to take the risk of giving Apple the entire homestead.

The story of Apple versus Microsoft has always been a story of a vertical monopoly pointing to a horizontal monopoly and saying how evil they are.

>I actually believe steve jobs when he says microsoft held back computer development by decades potentially.

This doesn't seem plausible to me. Decades is a lot even when accounting for compounding growth and some of their more questionable practices. They've also surely fueled a lot of resources into development, and I'm not sure if a different company would have definitely acquired as much money to be able to use in the first place. I also don't really see Apple as a beacon of light in comparison.

But then again, I also think that modern Gates is a huge force for good in the world, and a good role model for other rich people. As for Melinda, she also seems great but from what I'm seeing she focuses on less effective causes and I suspect her money will overall help the world a bit less (which is her right of course) than if they were in his hands.

Probably because as much as I dislike Bill Gates, and the Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates massively benefit(ed)|(s) from all the bullshit and fanfare and I'd like to see some evidence in general before I condemn people.

I didn't downvote that comment though.

Steve Jobs was an asshole, but great at developing and marketing products.

Elon Musk is an asshole, but great at developing and marketing products.

Bill Gates is an asshole, but a great business man and his charity seems to be doing useful work.

At some point, you just leave out the "he's an asshole" part, as it's sort of implied.

Not all great people are assholes.

Most assholes aren't great people, either.

"It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice."

Steve is no where near Elon. Steve rode on Woz's talent. At best he is a great manager.

And Elon didn't really have anything to do with the success of PayPal.

He bought Tesla. He didn't actually create that company.

A lot of what is attributed to Elon Musk is pure BS.

He is great at marketing, but not the "genius inventor" that many seem to think that he is.

These people are really good entrepreneurs who had a lot of luck on their side, but they are also severely overhyped.

Before PayPal Elon coded his first product zip2 however spagetti code it might be. He made his fortune with his own talent unlike Steve. If Woz had not met Steve, no way apple would have formed. Try stopping Elon

> He bought Tesla. He didn't actually create that company.

Are you saying all you need to do is create a company and that equals success and a good product?

Because damn some people in silicon valley want a word, you know something they don't.

Aww c'mon. He bought a fledgling company, and has CREATED Tesla as the world leading force it is. As well as SpaceX.

Credit where credit is due.

Talk to the nurses under her, and you learn that Mother Theresa was also an asshole.

I'm sure that Hitler had a redeeming quality or two.

Nobody is purely evil or purely good, although Hitler can gain the "almost purely evil" tag.

Where Gates stands on that spectrum, I have no idea. He's done vast amounts of good and he's done vast amounts of evil. Balancing them depends on how you weight each action, and that's a very personal opinion.

> Yet now he is some sort of god/genius for the elite. It's very nice that he's eliminating disease and helping with vaccines, but I just can't believe how much everyone's forgotten about his past.

It is definitely not by accident. I'm sure someone was payed very handsomely to fix his reputation.

Somebody gave a link higher up : the "someone" includes at least most of the large national "newspapers of reference", around 600 million dollars.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com