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The lasting influence of Netscape Time

thehistoryoftheweb.com

21–30 of 33 posts

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#21
post #14

Jamie Zawinski at the end of the Code Rush doco: We're at the beginning of an industry and who knows where that industry's going to go? This could all turn into television again. It could be controlled by a small number of companies who decide what we see and hear. And there's a lot of precedent for that. While you may say it's not television because we have content creators now, most of the mainstream consumption is…

> Jamie's nightclub has become a success

If you've read his blog, it is always on the verge of catastrophe.

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#22
post #14

Jamie Zawinski at the end of the Code Rush doco: We're at the beginning of an industry and who knows where that industry's going to go? This could all turn into television again. It could be controlled by a small number of companies who decide what we see and hear. And there's a lot of precedent for that. While you may say it's not television because we have content creators now, most of the mainstream consumption is…

Success is a relative term. If you follow his blog ( https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/ ), it's been a slog in many ways. If it's not Live Nation, it's the municipal/state government, NIMBYs, etc. The retail/entertainment industry is also full of terrible and/or expensive companies that do everything from PoS/inventory down to suppliers being monopolies themselves. He's definitely a curmudgeon, but DNA lounge has been a struggle. He's even had to resort to setting up donations.

He's made it abundantly clear that while he's rich, he doesn't have infinite money.

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#23

Netscape thought that open sourcing their code will save them but it didn't.

This sounds totally ridiculous now, but at the time there was a lot of hype about Linux / open source, a sense/possibility that it could overcome microsoft/sun/ibm/hp etc, some big IPOs like VA Linux Systems. Keep in mind that IE was a second-rate browser then, no chrome or serious rivals to Netscape/Mozilla at the time.

Looking back, it was a bit reminiscent of the bitcoin / ai bubbles, where every company desperately rushes to jump on the bandwagon.

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#25
post #14

Jamie Zawinski at the end of the Code Rush doco: We're at the beginning of an industry and who knows where that industry's going to go? This could all turn into television again. It could be controlled by a small number of companies who decide what we see and hear. And there's a lot of precedent for that. While you may say it's not television because we have content creators now, most of the mainstream consumption is…

> While you may say it's not television because we have content creators now

What's the difference? There are hundreds of millions of people watching a relatively small number of wealthy creators who need to cater to advertisers and follow strict platform rules or else they get the boot. We even have celebrity gossip and controversies surrounding them.

We've recreated the exact thing we've been fighting.

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#27

One of my favorite documentaries, also because it captures so much personal reality and feeling of what it must have been like, it really inspires me.

One interesting aspect that I remember about this is the internal NNTP server with a newsgroup known as "Bad Attitude" where frustrations with the products, culture, structure, and other elements of Netscape were shared.

IIRC, "Bad Attitude" was eventually terminated, then a private group known as "Really Bad Attitude" was launched to a chosen few.

Microsoft managed to obtain all of these discussion histories in the discovery phase of its various lawsuits.

https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/rbarip.html

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#28
post #14

Jamie Zawinski at the end of the Code Rush doco: We're at the beginning of an industry and who knows where that industry's going to go? This could all turn into television again. It could be controlled by a small number of companies who decide what we see and hear. And there's a lot of precedent for that. While you may say it's not television because we have content creators now, most of the mainstream consumption is…

Success is a relative term. If you follow his blog ( https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/ ), it's been a slog in many ways. If it's not Live Nation, it's the municipal/state government, NIMBYs, etc. The retail/entertainment industry is also full of terrible and/or expensive companies that do everything from PoS/inventory down to suppliers being monopolies themselves. He's definitely a curmudgeon, but DNA lounge h…

Keeping that bar open is a testimony to obsession.

Sound, sidewalks, toilets, pizza, overreach, the story is full of tragedy and perseverance.

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#29

Anybody know what it was that JWZ was saying "this is bad" about?

https://youtu.be/4Q7FTjhvZ7Y?t=1577

> This is bad.

> What's that?

> Um, well, so I connected to the, uh... The machine that- that controls the FTP push, is like, not answering.

Spoiler: he had the wrong hostname.

> Mm... oh. Duh!

Re: The lasting influence of Netscape Time

#30
post #27

One of my favorite documentaries, also because it captures so much personal reality and feeling of what it must have been like, it really inspires me.

One interesting aspect that I remember about this is the internal NNTP server with a newsgroup known as "Bad Attitude" where frustrations with the products, culture, structure, and other elements of Netscape were shared. IIRC, "Bad Attitude" was eventually terminated, then a private group known as "Really Bad Attitude" was launched to a chosen few. Microsoft managed to obtain all of these discussion histories in the…

He's redirecting requests coming from hn to a photo of a hairy ball in an egg holder with some mildly insulting text, and setting a cookie so the redirect happens outside of hn links as well. The text even comes with a tone of the moral high ground, so you know he's not being an asshole, just "being honest".

It's fair to say he's not interested in having his views known to readers here.

https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2024/hn.png

https://web.archive.org/web/20260512201857/https://cdn.jwz.o...

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