alt Hacker NewsThere's still hope. I would like to draw a parallel to Microsoft Windows, with my own narrative added over.
Tech nerds mostly knew that Windows was not a good server operating system. It was also not a fantastic software development environment unless you were using a big, all-inclusive, IDE that was probably aimed specifically at developing Windows libraries and applications.
But, Windows was (and still is) the choice for normies by a WIDE margin.
The tech nerds continued to mostly ignore Windows for server stuff, and more and more ignored it for other dev stuff, too (many migrating to Macs, some to Linux, etc).
If you have a lot of users, but no developers on your platform, you're playing a dangerous game. Eventually Microsoft found a way to have Linux running in Windows. I don't know or care if that "saves" Microsoft or Windows or whatever, but I do see that as a win for the tech nerds.
All we have to do is get the tech nerds to stop using Chrome. Chrome can't survive forever if the nerds stop using Chrome, if we stop optimizing our web pages specifically for Chrome, and if we stop writing and maintaining extensions for it.
Eventually, they'll probably cave and put back more stuff to make the nerds happy, in order to bring them back to the platform and save their normie userbase. Either that or Chrome will die. Both are fine with me.
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> All we have to do is get the tech nerds to stop using Chrome. Chrome can't survive forever if the nerds stop using Chrome, if we stop optimizing our web pages specifically for Chrome, and if we stop writing and maintaining extensions for it.
Agreed 100% with this.
With the path Apple/Google are taking it looks like Microsoft will be the best bet for quite a while still. The thing with Microsoft is that while they lack taste and have some nasty corporate behavior, they are less greedy than the others and are willing to work with their customers more, respond to needs/demands better. Oh, and they don't try to have a captive hardware market, that is a massive plus.
The reason the "normies" "choose" Microsoft is because it's the only choice that make somewhat sense from a financial standpoint if you don't care that much. There is a whole mythology about Apple hardware lasting longer and all but, in my experience, the reverse is true and you get much more for your money if you opt for a standard computer that happens to come with Windows.
Linux would have a fight chance with better hardware/software support but dev/manufacturers can be arsed because it's a chicken and egg problem (there are also too many variations of what is Linux, so that doesn't help).
With the iPhone success, Apple had a chance to gain market share for "real" computer in a way that would have long lasting effect both for business and consumer support, instead they went full greed mode and found many clever ways to close even more a platform that was already not the most open, while had the same time selling weak computer that are clearly lacking for the price, very often with terrible engineering decision (like their new Apple Silicon iMac, already having issues, less than 4 years after release, what a joke).