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Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

wired.com

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Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#21

Post by willz »

Very very good interview.

So, Steve Jobs were, in 1996, 100% certain the Web Objects will be the future of web development. It didn't happen, and he failed.

Do anybody care to think why he failed?

I have a very "simpleton" theory. Just throw it out here:

Steve Jobs can almost make anything work. He's smart, and he has resources. He can make a good washing machine if he want to. But I think that "anything" will have to be something that he can use, touch, play with, i.e. Mp3, phone, laptop ... But Web Object is an enterprise server software. I can't imagine Steve Jobs playing with it. So, he picked something that he cannot love or even touch. Based on the interview, he picked WO because he believe enterprise will need it and it's gonna make a lot of money.

My belief is that an entrepreneur works best when working on a product that he personally use.

Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#22

Post by coderdude »

itistoday wrote: post #20
itistoday wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, they're the future of the web, or haven't you heard? ;-)

Was I voted down because y'all lack a sense of humor, or was it because you didn't read the article?

You can't get by on HN with little quips that don't really add to the conversation.

Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#23

Post by 9oliYQjP »

freetard wrote: post #5

Any idea what he means by "web objects"? I read the whole thing but couldn't get a clear idea.

Others have pointed out that WebObjects is an actual Apple framework for making web applications. If I'm not mistaken, Dell used to use it for their online ordering site in the late 1990s. Apple used it also for the first iTunes Store iterations (not sure what they use today). I only have a superficial understanding of WebObjects but it looked a lot like a Rails/Django style framework with Objective-C Script or Java, and about 10 years too soon.

Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#24

Post by pohl »

tmsh wrote: post #18

In some ways, his thoughts are some of the most profound things I've read. A very clear articulation of the place of creativity: Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synth…

How do you infer he sees no connection between the two?

Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#28

Post by masterj »

billmcneale wrote: post #16

"The Web is not going to change the world, certainly not in the next 10 years."

I think one could argue both sides effectively, depending on your definition of 'change the world'. There is still a huge unequal distribution of wealth, war still wages, people go hungry, and education still isn't what it should be. The internet has affected these things in a limited way, but it has not radically altered them. Not that the effect of the web hasn't been massive in other ways, but I think this is the scale he was talking about.

Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#29

Post by qwzybug »

masterj wrote: post #28
billmcneale wrote: post #16

"The Web is not going to change the world, certainly not in the next 10 years."

I think one could argue both sides effectively, depending on your definition of 'change the world'. There is still a huge unequal distribution of wealth, war still wages, people go hungry, and education still isn't what it should be. The internet has affected these things in a limited way, but it has not radically altered them. Not that the effect of the web hasn't been massive in other ways, but I think this is the…

I tend to agree that the recent focus on web technology has retarded the pace of actual innovation in the last decade. The smart people who should be building the jetpacks and curing cancer are making pets.com, or, no offense, founding YC startups to make a webapp to market your new webapp to other people's webapps on the web.

Cf. Warren Ellis: "a nice robot phone is not an acceptable substitute for a future." http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/05/start/...

Re: Steve Jobs's thoughts on the Internet in 1996

#30

Post by tptacek »

alsomike wrote: post #19
ajju wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting viewpoint. I think Wikipedia, Wikileaks, the use of Blogs, Twitter and even the epitome-of-corporate-antiprivacy that is Facebook by political movements: all present very strong counterevidence to your claim that the web has not been democratized. The heart of any information medium has to be commerce, in that there has to be way to economically support the infrastructure costs of the medium but what make…

Wikipedia is a perfect example of what I'm talking about, because it's controlled by a very small number of elites with no accountability. This is true of Britannica, but the difference is that Wikipedia editors have perversely managed to co-opt populist democratic rhetoric in order to justify what is effectively an oligarchy. The presence of the edit button on each page functions as an ideological mystification to c…

That's a really superficial critique of Wikipedia, and it doesn't appear to be supported by the facts.

The fact is, if you go use the "edit" button right now and make a good-faith improvement, your edit is overwhelmingly likely to stand.

The "oligarchy" you refer to consists of many hundreds of people, freely nominated from among all the site's users, elected by the votes of every Wikipedia user. If you've made just a few edits, you can OK or neg new members of the "oligarchy".

What you're of course ignoring is the fact that Wikipedia's overwhelming success at their original mission has resulted in a ridiculously valuable position in everyone's search results and a huge influx of random users. I'm not a fan of the bureaucracy at all, but I at least respect the abuse, misuse, and obnoxiousness they're up against.

It's amazing to me that they're as good as they are. They certainly aren't some weird mindfuck or exploitation scheme, as you seem to be implying.

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