ergophobe - 5:51 pm on Jul 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Tedster asked if *I* could turn into another Microsoft and the last example was one I could relate to...

Did they cut corners in software development in order to exploit? Or did they get blind-sided by an unforeseen security landscape - something that only appeared with their global near-monopoly in software?

My books are very precise scholarly editions of historical texts, but they are also very complex with perhaps 5K references to archival materials in each one (plus perhaps gain as many to printed sources). Like an operating system, precision and accuracy (read: stability and security) count. I thought my first book was scrupulously done and, in some ways it was, but I knew less about quality control than I do now and I find the numerous "bugs" in it. Experience has taught me to work to higher standard, but I really needed the apprenticeship first. Maybe MS had nefarious motives, but I can certainly see myself, with the best motives, tackling such complex projects and still ending up with security holes all over.

Would I try to crush and kill every competitor? Not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of practice, I could see thinking "Hey, my customers shouldn't pay $30 for a disk defragmenter, that should be part of the utility package included with the OS." In the end, I might end up destroying that business even if I had no intention to do so.

Part of it in MS's case is just scale. I hop in my car and go kill millions of insects. I'm not an insect hater, I'm just trying to get somewhere.

Such an idea is only possible in a world where people (absurdly) believe that it's possible to produce infinite quantities of goods or services

Actually, it is possible in a world in which people (not so absurdly) believe that it's possible to produce ever-increasing quantities of goods and services.

What is absurd is the belief that we can use ever-increasing quantities of resources. If we have a fixed amount of resources, we may still, through ever-increasing efficiency, be able to supply ever-increasing (but not infinite of course) quantities of goods and services. It's Buckminster Fuller's idea of a planet of a billion billionaires.

- which is, historically, a new idea.

Well, it depends on what you mean by new and what precise idea you're talking about. I would say that in a European context, the idea that things will consistently improve is a child of the Renaissance when Euros, for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire, believed that they could surpass the ancients. So in the grand scheme, the general idea is only a little over 500 years old, which is relatively new.

On the other hand, your idea, that it is not possible to consistently surpass our forefathers, is a either a very old idea recently recycled or a very new idea.