alt Hacker NewsNo. It’s broader than that. The market forces are the entire realm of what’s possible, now and in the future. When Windows seemed entrenched forever, the platforms that eventually surpassed weren’t the competing desktop OSes (Mac and Linux). It was the web first, in the late 1990s-2000s, then mobile (iPhone and Android) in the 2010s.
Necessity really is the mother of invention, and the more we need something new, the sooner someone will invent it. But it will look no more like an iPhone than the iPhone looked like a PC.
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This is a ridiculous take. The iPhone was enabled by unrelated advances in computer hardware miniaturization, it had absolutely nothing to do with Windows' dominance creating "necessity". It was not competing with, and never did, replace Windows. Regulation is needed to ensure that people can compete within a market, not just create an entirely new market as enabled by technological advances which would have happened anyways.
> The market forces are the entire realm of what’s possible, now and in the future.
I actually suspected as much and left "competing smartphones" somewhat vague.
> When Windows seemed entrenched forever
It's still entrenched! Microsoft got a slap on the wrist by the government right before September 11, and antitrust enforcement has been on a holiday ever since.
> the platforms that eventually surpassed weren’t the competing desktop OSes (Mac and Linux)
In terms of revenue, desktop computers were surpassed by smartphones, but they were not replaced by smartphones. I don't consider them to be directly competing products, and most of us who can afford it own both. A smartphone fits in your pocket, whereas a keyboard and pointing device and large screen will never fit in your pocket.