Hacker News Reader

Comment by nightcracker | Hacker News Reader

Yes they think this, but not in the way you or I think about it. At least this is my admittedly cynical take. There is a strong push across tech to erase the concept of a Personal Computer, and make everything function like a tablet. Calling tablets/phones PCs is part of this, by muddying the water, as well as attempts like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE

Interfaces and functionality keep being dumbed and locked down like they are on tablets and phones. Microsoft and Apple are watering at the mouth for the day when the true personal computer is gone and every computing device is a walled garden where every user uses their pre-approved apps doing only the pre-approved tasks, preferably as thin clients into their controlled cloud.

View on HN

And millions if not billions of users will be perfectly content with that -- especially if it means they won't have to deal with the hassle of keeping their computing devices clean, updated, and malware-free on their own.

Nerds mewling about "general purpose computing" do not understand the market, and do not want to.

I think it's fine that a lot of what we've traditionally used a PC for is now available in more appliance like devices for people. But I also think that personal computing is a revolutionary tool and absolutely should exist for people inclined to use it. Problem is, pretty much everyone who used to make PCs would much rather burn them to the ground so they can sell appliances instead.

Even here on Hackernews, even among people who computer for a living, in their daily lives total control over their machines is a distant second to "It Just Works".

Part of Just Working, in this day and age, involves Just Updating Automatically and Just Protecting You From Malware, the latter of which involves tight restrictions on what can be run, and what it can access when it does run.

Companies want to sell appliances because appliances are more useful to the average person and therefore make more money. We're all going to have to reckon with the Gramscian heartbreak that most of the proletariat don't really want a revolution -- just less hassle in their lives.

> art of Just Working, in this day and age, involves Just Updating Automatically

Except that automatic (or forced) updating totally breaks the "Just working" mantra. I've learned to dread every update that comes down the pike. It's quite a change from the old days when updates were something that you generally looked forward to (and could ignore if the particular update made your experience worse in some important way).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com