> with a collection of 3rd party apps who won’t steal their life savings.
This is blatant unempirical scare mongering. How many desktop computer users have had their life savings stolen by 3rd party apps? Citation needed.
> The average consumer is literally dozens of times more likely to trust a new smartphone app than a new desktop app.
This is a false dichotomy. Almost all desktop computer users have a smartphone too. The people who have enough disposable income buy both smartphones and desktop computers. There's no inherent conflict between the two.
> the locked down console market will be with us forever because even Windows can’t deliver a simple experience that reliably works.
That's a competely ahistorical interpretation. Originally, the gaming consoles had no third-party games: the games were all written by the vendors. The first third-party game development company was Activision, a group of former Atari programmers who learned that their games were responsible for most of Atari's revenue, but Atari refused to give them a cut, so they left and formed their own company. There was a lawsuit, and it was ultimately settled, allowing Atari to get a cut of Activision while allowing Activision to otherwise continue developing console games. It had nothing to do with "reliablity" or "security" or any kind of made-up excuse like that.
> You’re kidding, right? You seem to have completely forgotten, or put the drunk glasses, on what living in the 2000s was like.
Again, citation needed. I made it through the 2000s just fine, thank you.
> What a stereotypical HN comment. Cite something that only applied to the 2nd generation of consoles to prove me wrong, even though my point spans almost all console generations.
No, I was explaining the historical origin of the game console business model. Of course the business model continued, as these things usually do, through a combination of monetary incentives and inertia.
> Again, citation needed. I made it through the 2000s just fine, thank you.
Playing devil's advocate: banking trojans used to be really common here in Brazil back in the pre-smartphone era of the early 2000s (smartphones already existed, but weren't very commmon; most people who used online banking did it through their home computers). They're the reason why, for a long time, it was hard to use online banking on Linux: banks required (and still require) the use of an invasive "security plugin" on the browser (nowadays, there's also a Linux version of that plugin, which IIRC includes a daemon which runs as the root user), which attempts to somehow block and/or detect these banking trojans.
What does this even mean? Do you stand behind what you say? If so, then just say it without hiding behind the devil. And if you don't stand behind what you say, then why in the world are you saying it?
This is a silly criticism. After all, as we all know here (right?), Atari itself fell on hard times. I was talking about the business model, not a specific business. Vendor lockdown and taking a cut of 3rd party software is clearly quite lucrative for vendors, and that's why they do it. There's of course no guarantee of success, but it's obvious why other vendors have emulated that business model.
It may be only for historical reasons that desktop computers aren't completely locked down too. It's a lot easier to lock down a new device class, like smartphones, than it is to lock down an existing open device class, without causing consumer outrage and rebellion.
I worry about the long term health of general-purpose computing. It's not going anywhere today, but I fear for future generations that will likely eventually never know the joy of bending a computer entirely to their will, because they'll have never known computing without guardrails.
This is blatant unempirical scare mongering. How many desktop computer users have had their life savings stolen by 3rd party apps? Citation needed.
> The average consumer is literally dozens of times more likely to trust a new smartphone app than a new desktop app.
This is a false dichotomy. Almost all desktop computer users have a smartphone too. The people who have enough disposable income buy both smartphones and desktop computers. There's no inherent conflict between the two.
> the locked down console market will be with us forever because even Windows can’t deliver a simple experience that reliably works.
That's a competely ahistorical interpretation. Originally, the gaming consoles had no third-party games: the games were all written by the vendors. The first third-party game development company was Activision, a group of former Atari programmers who learned that their games were responsible for most of Atari's revenue, but Atari refused to give them a cut, so they left and formed their own company. There was a lawsuit, and it was ultimately settled, allowing Atari to get a cut of Activision while allowing Activision to otherwise continue developing console games. It had nothing to do with "reliablity" or "security" or any kind of made-up excuse like that.