The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

It's a shame Twitter Bootstrap wasn't around in 2007.

The home computer has been replaced with the iPhone.

What boggles my mind is that the industry accepts Apple's restrictions on what kind of computing can happen, how their software can be distributed, and how their gross/margins are taxed.

These devices have done a perverse thing to our field.

Consumers love them, but fuck are they awful for freedom, business, and small time success.

We used to build platforms in the open that we all benefited from (ie. the Web). Even Microsoft Windows was and is more open than these goddamn monopoly devices.

The DOJ needs to rip Apple's control of the iPhone away. It's not their device anymore. It's the industry.

Computing belongs to the people. It'd make for a healthier playing field, and Apple would still be making bank.

Personally I'm in love with the fact that Apple found a business model selling privacy and safety, while I'm also torn on the idea that Apple has been using their weight to bludgeon the competition into giving up a massive share of revenue.

At the same time, the weighing of leverage is precisely how the market has and still works to this day. Thus if you send me out there to negotiate with Popeye's (which really wants you to create an account), or Walmart, Facebook, or even a small company making todo apps, I will simply not win, and neither will my family members. I love that cross-app tracking is now opt-in, because that's not something I'd ever imagine negotiating with any company, ever. I love the fact that all subscription-based services purchased through the iOS platform can be managed in a centralized place.

And I will of course resent in my tiny, futile, pathetic way, those voices which say "Well, you as a free agent made these concessions in the marketplace. Didn't you get what you deserve?"

Why can't there be a consumer choice to throw your weight behind a mega-giant who intercedes forcefully on your behalf, in a marketplace that is all about the weighing of leverage?

I'm of mixed feelings on it. On the one hand, it sure is hard to read. On the other hand, in small doses I kind of enjoy it after the super sanitized corporate nothingness most of the web has become now. One glance at this page and there is zero doubt in my mind that it represents the genuine expression of an actual human without layers and layers of forced censorship and editing by some "platform." The web was never supposed to have "platforms" in the first place: Youtube/Facebook/Twitter etc are all fundamentally rent-seeking parasites in a way most people don't even appreciate today.

The web was supposed to just be a place anyone could put up a document with some links to other documents. Cheap, simple, easy, fast. Then some services cropped up to help make some of the frustrating parts easier and quicker, and eventually the "services" ended up eating the web alive.

Between this and another post containing hundreds of 88x31 buttons, tell me about it!