> When you consider the anti-competitive, innovation stifling behavior of Microsoft in the 90s or Google/Apple today, what's the impact in terms of holding back humanity?
They actually moved humanity forward. Microsoft/Apple/Google have brought computing to the masses. They made computers work for the average person. Whether from the goal to put a PC on every desk, put a powerful portable, usable computer in every pocket, and brought turn-by-turn directions to the masses.
The whole Unix, designing only for the high-priesthood and everybody else be damned philosophy has probably held back computing more than anything Microsoft or Apple or Google did.
Yes, that's undeniable, but what I'm saying is I think they did a bad job and that we could be further ahead. As a small example, take the time wasted on developing for IE6 because anti-competitive practices were used to prevent alternatives. What's the opportunity cost in terms of the innovation that could have been achieved if all those development hours went into something more productive than fighting with a crappy product from an entrenched incumbent?
What if Apple would have embraced Java and Oracle hadn't fumbled / abandoned JavaFX? I would argue that developing with JavaFX was a better experience 10 years ago than WebDev is today, at least for line of business apps. Imagine if every technology like that had been allowed to survive (and thrive) everywhere. Developers would have significantly more choice and we'd have much less waste in the context of finagling with the current options to accomplish what we want.
> The whole Unix, designing only for the high-priesthood and everybody else be damned philosophy has probably held back computing more than anything Microsoft or Apple or Google did.
For a long time I've thought a lot of open source projects are "good enough" projects sponsored by big tech to ward off competition from high quality alternatives. As some specific examples, BTRFS with the parity patches that were rejected about a decade ago because they didn't match business goals or the WinGet fiasco that killed AppGet. Those are opinions. I'm not accusing them of anything.
Hindsight is 20/20; You are talking about decades of nuanced iteration and missing the fact that we all need to buy computers from someone. As soon as capitalism enters the equation, we are no longer looking at global optimums for the advancement of humanity. It could have been a lot worse too.
An apt quote comes to mind, “science advances one death at a time.” I tend to think this is human nature playing out. Each generation has stalwarts that hold back progress; It’s a natural outcome of our social structure and societal norms. I would even argue that there is significant value in not advancing too fast!
They actually moved humanity forward. Microsoft/Apple/Google have brought computing to the masses. They made computers work for the average person. Whether from the goal to put a PC on every desk, put a powerful portable, usable computer in every pocket, and brought turn-by-turn directions to the masses.
The whole Unix, designing only for the high-priesthood and everybody else be damned philosophy has probably held back computing more than anything Microsoft or Apple or Google did.