From first glance there's still some decent traffic on Daring Fireball submissions, even inside the times Gruber asserts deadweighting.
(At the same time I think there is a flag problem on HN. I'd recommend /active for a better view into HN discussions.)
Historically I should be your target group, I'm a Mac user since it was uncool (and tribal), I think I have DF in my subscriptions since NetNewsWire 1. But I'm just not interested anymore, I fell off as a regular reader.
Partly it is topical: I'm rather disinterested in inside baseball or opinions on journalism on Apple. "Claim Chowder" as a concept should have staid in the 2000s, I think. My Apple interests are more in the technical details or in the opinions of the wider Indie Devsphere or how people use their technology. Hence Michael Tsai's blog is my favourite Apple blog.
And where you touch an Apple business aspect I'm often baffled by your reasoning. That your Apple-vs-EU-opinions are rather outlier opinions I don’t need to recap, although I found the tone of your language sometimes going in an off putting weird direction, almost as if those Europeans should not allowed to give themselves laws.
But even when I share the complaint of a critical article of yours there is a fundamental disconnect. Taking your recent "Rotten" post: You closed the article with the hope of someone berating the lower ranks of Apple like Jobs did with MobileMe. I found that sociopathic by Jobs then and I find the suggestion absurd today. Telling the slaves to row harder has never motivated someone, I think.
And even if, the software problem at Apple is managerial. Senior management invented the annual releases, probably for the Christmas season. Senior management started to announce features in advance, pushing them back more and more in the release year. Senior management releases features before they are ready. In my opinions the directly responsible individuals are Federighi and Dye, as good as that hair may be. And for all of it: Cook himself.
Plus: Apple's position has fundamentally changed. Instead of an upstart, it is a trillion-dollar-behemoth. That changes how we look at the company. And the company has deeply changed, like all tech company they become more vertical and insular in their services (“Feudal” is a wrong metaphor, historically speaking, but it goes to an emotional truth). Why should we root for them anymore?
Recently I tried helping someone to get a file from a PC to their iPhone. The best options were either weird file sharing services or an USB stick like a barbarian. I blame Apple. I remember a time when computers could talk to each other, based on shared, open technical standards. Of course I blame Apple.
Those… aren’t even close to the best options. Hell, if they have iCloud it’s a simple upload on a website away at least. There are other easy ways too.
> I blame Apple
Yes, I’m sure you do, taking responsibility is hard for some people.