Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996) • Hacker News Board

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#31

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #3

ryanchartrand wrote: post #2

Loved the whole bit on Netscape. "We are not going to make any money by selling browsers, and I personally don’t think they are going to make any money from it either. If you can get a browser from Microsoft for free, why are you going to pay $39 to Netscape?"

Its crazy that even today diehards defend the DOJ's insane war on MS in the 90s. Do you guys really want to pay for browsers or every single thing in a OS ala carte? MS was in the right here (the browser is just part of the OS) and the judgement just empowered OEMs to go apeshit with crapware and bundling, helping make the MS experience a lot crappier than it should be.

People I think defend it in the same way as prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion: we'll take what we can get. In the context of things like the "Halloween memos", funding the SCO controversy, and various other bits of anti-interoperability work people were just grateful for an impairment of the platform monopolist.

Nowadays Apple has a policy of banning all other web browsers and even program interpreters from its platform. This isn't really acceptable either, but there doesn't seem to be any prospect of doing anything about it.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#32

Post by almightysmudge » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #22

almightysmudge wrote: post #13

I have absolutely no love for the man, but he had some amazing visions of the future back then.

He was an amazing man. All of the hate is because he dared to follow that vision where it went, instead of merely being a vendor of software for Microsoft, or subservient to Google (eg: Apple built the entire infrastructure to do maps merely because Google wanted to sell apple customers information.) I've yet to meet a Steve Jobs hater who actually understood what the guy did. The steve jobs hate is all ideological a…

I'd suggest reading any of his biographies or watching Pirates of Silicon Valley. My problem is not with Apple at all, it's with the man himself.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#33

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:08 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #3

ryanchartrand wrote: post #2

Loved the whole bit on Netscape. "We are not going to make any money by selling browsers, and I personally don’t think they are going to make any money from it either. If you can get a browser from Microsoft for free, why are you going to pay $39 to Netscape?"

Its crazy that even today diehards defend the DOJ's insane war on MS in the 90s. Do you guys really want to pay for browsers or every single thing in a OS ala carte? MS was in the right here (the browser is just part of the OS) and the judgement just empowered OEMs to go apeshit with crapware and bundling, helping make the MS experience a lot crappier than it should be.

> Its crazy that even today diehards defend the DOJ's insane war on MS in the 90s.

Its crazy that even today, diehards continue to misrepresent the DOJ prosecution of MS in the 1990s.

> Do you guys really want to pay for browsers or every single thing in a OS ala carte?

The basis for the DOJ prosecution of MS wasn't that it was illegal in general to include a browser or similar application as an included feature of an OS, it was that it was illegal for a market participant with monopoly power in a particular market to leverage that monopoly power in an effort to monopolize an existing distinct market.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#34

Post by rconti » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:09 PM UTC

mmphosis wrote: post #12

It's 1996 and they're tossing around the term "apps."

This surprised me too. Of course I'm not surprised to learn that the term was used before it was popularized for iOS devices, but I'm VERY surprised to see it thrown about so liberally in this article. I really don't remember the term back then.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#35

Post by rconti » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:11 PM UTC

"... the site I just showed you will help Chrysler sell cars, because it distributes information to customers far better than Chrysler’s dealers can."

almost 20 years later, and nothing has changed. I'm trying to buy a specific car, and the Internet knows everything, dealers know nothing. The salespeople and dealers know less about the cars on their lots than the consumers do.

The consumers know about new models before they're even announced; dealers don't know about them until they show up. Dealers can't tell you when a certain car will be built or shipped, you're lucky if they can even tell you when it arrives at port and is on a train or truck destined for their dealership.

I'm spending a lot of time online where "insiders" sneak information about production numbers and ship dates and tracking and so on, and the "official" channels are utterly worthless.

It's amazing, disastrously bad. And we pay for it. I can't way to see the dealership model die.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#36

Post by nbevans » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:12 PM UTC

almightysmudge wrote: post #32

MCRed wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was an amazing man. All of the hate is because he dared to follow that vision where it went, instead of merely being a vendor of software for Microsoft, or subservient to Google (eg: Apple built the entire infrastructure to do maps merely because Google wanted to sell apple customers information.) I've yet to meet a Steve Jobs hater who actually understood what the guy did. The steve jobs hate is all ideological a…

I'd suggest reading any of his biographies or watching Pirates of Silicon Valley. My problem is not with Apple at all, it's with the man himself.

What has he done to you to make you so upset about him?

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#37

Post by bluedino » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

The way we set up the car financing feature is that it actually sends an OLE call to another Windows computer that launches an Excel spreadsheet that does the calculation for you, and then OLE messages the information back and shoves it onto the Web page.

If you came across something like that today it would probably make the DailyWTF

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#38

Post by rustynails » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #22

almightysmudge wrote: post #13

I have absolutely no love for the man, but he had some amazing visions of the future back then.

He was an amazing man. All of the hate is because he dared to follow that vision where it went, instead of merely being a vendor of software for Microsoft, or subservient to Google (eg: Apple built the entire infrastructure to do maps merely because Google wanted to sell apple customers information.) I've yet to meet a Steve Jobs hater who actually understood what the guy did. The steve jobs hate is all ideological a…

Amazing vision is true. Narcissist is true. Compassionate and Steve Jobs don't belong in the same sentence. He rejected his own daughter for many years - but he secretly admitted it (the Lisa computer). Pirates of Silicon Valley + feedback from Woz + Gates on the movie is worthwhile to understand Steve, as is Issacson's biography on Steve Jobs. I have very mixed feelings on the man.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#39

Post by nbevans » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #35

"... the site I just showed you will help Chrysler sell cars, because it distributes information to customers far better than Chrysler’s dealers can." almost 20 years later, and nothing has changed. I'm trying to buy a specific car, and the Internet knows everything, dealers know nothing. The salespeople and dealers know less about the cars on their lots than the consumers do. The consumers know about new models befo…

Tesla is trying to change that by getting rid of dealerships.

Re: Steve Jobs’s Interview with Red Herring (1996)

#40

Post by drzaiusapelord » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #27

nolok wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your starting point is wrong there: the DOJ wasn't against them for making it free, but for bundling it with their OS. They could offer it for free all they want. Similar in the EU, they weren't against them for it being free, and once they stopped bundling it and windows media player, they were off the hook (even though they still offered them for free).

The browser was ultimately mid-level on the list of grievances the DOJ had with Microsoft. That's why MS can bundle IE and Edge with the operating system today and nobody cares, including the US government. If all Microsoft had done is bundled a free browser with the OS, it would have never stood up in court in terms of anti-trust prosecution. It would have been a laughable case. What the DOJ got them on, was restrai…

>That's why MS can bundle IE and Edge with the operating system today and nobody cares, including the US government.

No, the only reason MS is suddenly bundling more, including Anti-Virus, is because the judgement expired in 2011.

>If you want to have a bad time, be a monopoly and pretend you're more powerful than the US Government,

Or from a realpolitik stance, if Netscape has more friends with the Clintons than you do (which they did), you're going to have a bad time. A lot of "careers" were made at the DoJ over this asinine case, that changed nothing for the better.