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We’ve lost a future that promised greater capability as computers became ubiquitous. While computers are better, faster, easier and cheaper than ever, something has gone wrong. Look at the present and see how e fall short of the future that might have been.


  • Summary of part 1
  • The BBS Scene
    • First way for regular people (home users) to communicate by computer
    • Was a hobbyist scene
    • Not many had any financial incentive
  • Into the 90’s, this distinction grew as the user-base broadened.
  • The reaction at the time was to make solving your own problems easier.
    • Microsoft’s OLE/OLE2
      • Designed to allow different tools to integrate
      • You could put an excel document inside of your word document
      • Worked between different software
    • Customizable tool bars
  • The last flicker in mainstream computing was Open Web API’s
    • Open API’s
    • Twitter/Facebook/Google
    • Yahoo Pipes
  • Something changed over time
    • Move toward the “broad” market, away from niche uses
    • Configurability vs simplicity
    • Power users no longer a priority or even possible
    • Growth with a tool is only possible at the very high end (Photoshop, programming languages)
    • Internet end-to-end model vs NAT
      • High speed still not end-to-end
    • Open Web vs Closed Services (Facebook, twitter, etc)
      • Closed services are the rule now
        • Messages
          • Open E-mail Still mostly open
          • We had IRC early on (it’s still around)
          • There was a first wave of IM programs which were closed: ICQ, AIM, MSN - these don’t remain today
          • Compare: Whatsapp, iMessage, Hangouts, Facebook messenger, Weechat, Viber, Telegam, Signal, Snapchat, Voxer
          • There was a time that Facebook and Google supported federation using XMPP to allow chatting with one another
        • Open Web vs Apps
        • Podcasts
          • Use technology from the early 2000’s, RSS
          • Anyone can host it without using a centralized service
          • Spotify wants to change that: Joe Rogan exclusive - the goal ownership of the platform
  • What about the future?
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Linux and GNU communities
    • Purism and Pine phone
    • Commercialization to commoditization
    • We vote with our feet and our wallets __

References

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