I think the shift from a traditional sales focus to one on subscriptions and "The Cloud" is a pretty monumental change. Losing traditional sales markets like selling phones really hastened that change. I don't think you're looking for proof that they're genuinely enthusiastic, because imo desperation is the rawest form of genuine enthusiasm. It's whether or not they're altruistic in this particular field, and that has yet to be seen.
I don't think you have to be altruistic to have genuine enthusiasm -- some companies have fantastic plans to support open-source as well as their business plans. But I agree with the first point you are making.
I think it is naive to believe than any company that is beholden to investors would choose altruism over profit. Most corporate altruism is just marketing.
I don't think Microsoft is any more altruistic now, they just have adjusted their corporate strategy to recognize that supporting openness is good for business. That is enough for me.
If Microsoft decides to make GitHub free for all, this can honestly have a devastating affect on GitLab and Bitbucket. I really think Microsoft is a lot more interested in:
Xamarin has improved, they've improved how git handles large repos, typescript is extremely stable...
I mean, on the consumer end they're definitely kind of failing, with the notable exception of minecraft being supported far more than any other game. Seems more like people are still stuck in the Ballmer state of mind - even Windows itself had to practically perform a 180 thanks to Ballmer's obsession with low powered tablets.
It's actually really interesting. Seems like internally, MSFT has kind of been let loose and no longer has to adhere to the more strict style Ballmer was a fan of. We've seen this with them hiring OSS talent (Miguel de Icaza, who was a pretty big advocate of trying to make MSFT less proprietary and locked down).
Externally though, the image looks completely different to those who don't really care for what's happening at MSFT - they just seem like an outdated Apple. That's slowly starting to change, I think the Verge recently put out a piece claiming they've switched positions. However, a lot of major consumer problems (Windows Update, Skype) have plagued the company tremendously. No amount of loving Typescript or VSC is going to change that.
Were they skeptical at all though? Or did they just want more control over the content? Whenever I talk to people who would very much be in that category, they don't hate TV at all, in fact they love it and sub to Netflix and Prime (or whatever else), they just hated the bombard of ads and not being able to watch what you want when you want.
So this hypocritical behavior you're trying to highlight just doesn't exist at all IMO, people wanted more control and they got it.
Was it not a commonly held opinion with your friends/family in high school and college that television was a pretty rotten form of media? I don't think that this is a universal phenomenon, but it definitely exists.
Pretty sure this only existed (and exists) on one side of a class divide. TV as entertainment for the "lower class" and thus if you want to be rich and snobby you avoid it for "higher pursuits". Then Netflix comes out and its hip, and gives people an excuse to participate in TV. Once the poor all have Netflix, there is suddenly a gap for a new cultural differentiator built around it.
Nope, far from common. Most people liked The Simpsons and/or various other such things.
There were a few "I don't even own a TV!" folks but they mostly turned into "I don't even own a Facebook!" types, in any case.
There were very few who wouldn't watch any television or film. And as TV production and writing quality went up, television took up more of their time.
No, not really. Most people in my high school liked watching TV and what not. They may not have liked aspects of the format (like ads or being stuck finding repeats into the times when a show wasn't on video yet), but they certainly liked watching TV.
Where the heck did you go to school/college anyway? Never seen that sort of attitude before.
Shortcut Win + Ctrl + C. I've known a couple people accidentally press it and think their display is broken! Use it quite often for quick visibility testing.
It's still powerful if it impacts people. Manipulation, is still powerful if it works.
Which is where you might be confused, you can be incredibly insincere and abusive (seems common in business) but still a great leader (great in this context not meaning just), as they've shown they can a) get out of sticky situations b) continue making money and c) have a relatively happy team. So in this scenario what would actually back up your argument would be demonstrations of the apologies having zero impact, the team hating the apologies and thus being less productive, and/or a general loss of revenue.
In the same vein though, the Windows team added in an Eye Control accessibility option [0] allowing users to control the OS with just their eyes. So the answer here would just be that the teams are so large that they can make phenomenal decisions and also plenty of bad ones.
>I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced.
It's not a change in the person, it's a shift in perspective due to boredom. There was a podcast about boredom from freakonomics I believe, and a lot of people (largely those 40+) simply don't view themselves as bored when all signs paint a different picture. This is what is happening to a lot of people (ITT), they are unaware of their boredom which feeds into a lack of curiosity, and so they keep doing the same routines and feel somewhat claustrophobic.
They could very much break out of that routine, could look for new places to visit, new sites to sink their fangs into, but they won't because routines are very comfortable, and heck most of the top 100 alexa sites fulfill nearly every desire.
When people say the internet isn't fun, it's not about presentation at all. Yes, Google has a lot of power in where people go, but there are so many alternative search engines and variety of leads that it really just takes one good afternoon being the excited curious cat you were as a teen.
It's also amusing to portray the internet as being some small entity. It's basically infinite at this point and it supports a million different interests, way more than it did in the 90's. Back then the whole internet population was in the millions and it was mostly geeks. Now it's in the billions and it covers everyone. So there's a ton of normies, but if you don't like what they're going, there's still at least the same amount of geeks available, probably more.
As you said, you just have to go looking for the weird and interesting places :)
