Sorry to say (or maybe not) but Microsoft and Apple (mostly Microsoft, of course) have between them ruined the computer industry and all its initial promise. They have turned it into something for profit, and profit only, while more and more blatantly screwing the consumer, whose ignorance in this matter they cherish and go out of their way to protect and enhance.(7)
That is to say, your ignorance of computers (which is quite understandable, given the nearly infinite complexity of the subject) is being deliberately encouraged, enhanced and leveraged to make More Money, More Money, More Money… and besides that, More Money.
The Computer Industry has lost its way. And not only them, of course, though I suspect the “disease” (of addiction to increasing profits) may have sourced from there and spread outward to the other industries, though it was always lurking in the back ground.
When you are in business only to make money
you have lost your way and will ulitmately fail.
“Business” is a service, first. Profit comes or it doesn’t.
Anything else is criminal. In fact, it used to be a crime!(6)
The computer industry was founded by idealists, and super intelligent people who wanted to uplift the entire Human Community to some thing better. Instead, we find ourselves in a fall so aweful that it’s hard to see any way out of Universal Collapse(1).
Anyway… enough on the Doom and Gloom Soap Box. My point here is that the Computer Industry is wide open for a new player, some one who puts the consumer first, some one who educates them on what MalWare is, and how it’s preventable. Some one who can leverage sufficient influence over legislators to have computer predators actually shut down(2). Some one who can put out an operating system that is actually secure without inconveniencing the owner or user of the computer. Some one who can craft an operating system that runs like a greased demon, fully optimized and always raring and waiting.(3) Someone who can make computers obvious in their use, some who adopts the maxim “if something it isn’t obvious to the user, then that’s a bug.” Some one who constantly advances the state of the computer art.
Some one who can do better with error messages than “something went wrong.” Piffle
Microsoft is failing fast. Apple is only a little ways behind them. (I’m equally disappointed with OS12, which actually seems to have no purpose beyond “being one number up on Microsoft”). But Hark! There are alternatives. Like American politics(4), which pretends to be a two party system, the Computer Industry pretends it is a two company system: Apple or MSFT. Neither statement is even a little bit true. There are other operating sytems, but the monopoly on the consumer’s knowledge and expectations has sort of clouded over the other players, removed them from the public eye.
What I’d like to see is a brand new approach. I have ideas myself for a completely new basis for computer processors and supporting hardware and the accompanying software. A true operating sytem. A whole notch (or six) beyond anything currently in place. Anything. If I have those ideas, so do others.
So…? The computer industry is practically inviting some one to come in and steal the entire customer base away, simply by being competent and honest and by delivering a quality product in service to the consumer, rather than the stock holders or the CEO(5).
Somebody do it!
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(1) Doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to “save cilization” [assuming it’s worth saving, instead of replacing with something some what more rational]. There may be a way out of this mess with only minimal disruption to the Herd, but it is deuced difficult to see what that might be.
(2) That will take considerable “leverage,” I fear. As the malware industry (including fake tech support, and even what now passes for legitimate tech support) is now a multi-billion dollar industry, and — in the state of politics in the world right now — no legislator is likely to try shutting down such an industry. But let me tell you something, I can’t figure out if Al Capone would have run screaming from the current Computer Scam industry or would have started taking notes for his own enterprises.
(3) Why is it that, even with an extremely fast processor, lots of memory, solid state hard drives, etc, I still find myself waiting while Windows counts its fingers and toes? As a long time software engineer [among other things] I find it very hard to explain such behavior, especially after 50 years of development time. 50 Years! The thing should be perfected by now — fast, fast, fast, secure, secure, secure, and obvious to all users. Even dialable to your level of competence: afraid of computers, newbie, old hand, power user, programmer, NSA agent. The levels of compentence matter, yet no OS on the planet right now lets you dial in your own level of sophistication and have the machine stop issuing idiot warnings, things that resemble “hey! did you know you just clicked on this button? Did you mean to do that?” Give me a break…
(4) There are actually 30+ registered political parties in America. Maybe 5 total that could actually put a candidate in office if the Big Two weren’t constantly doing everything they can to suppress the others (any one remember Ross Perot and the fight he had to go through even to get into the debates with the “other two”?). In the words of Roland Deschain [The Dark Tower — the books not that horrible travesty of a movie] “They have forgotten the faces of their Fathers.”
(5) In a “rational” business structure, a business that is delivering a product or service and is dedicated to doing the very best it possibly can (if not, then you have the wrong job, or you need therapy), the consumer comes first. Always. The employees are second (too many corporations these days view employees as a necessary evil that must be gotten rid of as fast as possible (stupidity! Your employees are your company). Then come the stock holders. Then the CEO and other executives. Anything else is inexcusable and (defensibly) criminally fraudulent.
(6) (Yes, this footnote is out of order. Deal with it.) If you don’t know what I mean by “it used to be a crime,” look up profiteering. Grabbing excessive profits has always been a crime, until the last 25 years, more or less.
(7) (Yes, another footnote out of order. But I don’t do rules, remember?) MSFT, Apple and unfortunately quite a few others have also spent considerable money and energy in making their “services” as addictive as possible. Marjunana is considered by many addictive and therefore (THEREFORE!) a gateway to more destructive drugs. (It’s not, for most people — it is for some.) Why isn’t adictive software treated the same way? Don’t believe it’s an addiction? Try walking away from your computer(s), your cell phone(s), your tablet(s) and your TV(s) for 5 days. No electronics at all for 5 days. Can you do it? How about just 1 day, 24 hours? What happens when you walk out of the house, get where you are going and then you realize you left your phone at home? What’s that feeling in the pit of your stomach? How about that panic when you simply can’t find your phone? Did you know that 911 gets emergency calls when Facebook goes down? (Yes, really.)
Sure it’s not an addiction?