https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/
> I think you have it backwards. It's the new vision of computers (walled gardens, all the interesting logic hidden away in data centers, content consumption appliances instead of real computers) that is pale and sickly.
Yes, these new trends are worrisome. But it's not the first time!
I firmly believe that we'd all be better off if THIS guy had been the one to introduce computers to the common man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMzojQFyMo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOf4EMN6-XA
To this day, Microsoft is putting computers in schools--but not LOGO, not free software, not unix, not lisp, not crates of disposable m68ks and bread boards... Nope, they are putting products in front of new generations eyeballs.
Data can trump anecdotes, and it should when a culture believes they are doing the right thing but things are still going poorly and nobody understands why--at those times, by all means, collect some data and analyze it!
But when "everybody knows" we're doing something wrong, and things are going poorly, then for the love of god use some common sense and stop doing it!
The whole planet got 0wned by MS before many of us here were born--certainly before most of us were competent. So this is what we've got, this is where we are.
Big picture: Where do we go from here? Immediate situation: don't become part of a new generation of MS fanboys. We don't need that.