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In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

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412 points conanxin | 1 comments | 27 Jul 24 06:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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bee_rider ◴[27 Jul 24 13:39 UTC] No.41086529[source]▶
> Yet now the company that Gates and Allen founded is selling operating systems like Gillette sells razor blades. New releases of operating systems are launched as if they were Hollywood blockbusters, with celebrity endorsements, talk show appearances, and world tours.

I was a kid at the time, but did many people actually buy windows? I know about the ad-thing where the cast of Friends or whatever bought windows 95, but as I recall even back then the OS just came with the device. The only exception was OSX, which was a “Big Deal,” even non-technical people downloaded it.

Anyway, it is funny to see this in retrospect. Nowadays, operating systems have become so commoditized that you can’t even make a business selling them.

I love Linux but his description is quite optimistic.

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1. shostack ◴[27 Jul 24 18:08 UTC] No.41088302[source]▶
It feels like while the marketing of launches may still be like that, it is purely to usher along adoption of the target future state which seems to be doing away with versions and having you simply locked in to forever paying an ever-increasing subscription fee to continue to use your computer in addition to data collection which can be separately monetized.

This is markedly different from how it was in the past when they needed people to get up, go to a store, and buy the disc containing the new version of the OS.