Island in the Net by Khürt Williams
Technology and Photography Musings. Established circa 2000.
The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.
I'm certainly starting to feel hopeless — and powerless — about my future. Or maybe Robert's writings are just stoking my fear.
http://gdgt.com/discuss/will-mac-app-store-have-enough-sell-avi/?utm_source=g...
Interesting post on gdgt about how free — as in free beer — software may be killing off the commercial software market and how this trend intersects with Apple’s launch of the Mac App Store.
The real issue with the desktop software market is that (unless you’re talking about productivity software) there just isn’t all that much consumers need to buy anymore. The boxed software business didn’t die because of app stores, it died because of an overabundance of great programs that are free, open, or otherwise subsidized that are available through other web or internet services. To put it another way: lately, how often have your parents bought software for their computer (that wasn’t Microsoft Office)?
In the minds of many, the iPad is like Flash that pays. You can cram traditional publishing content into an overwrought, novelty Flash interface as The New York Times once did with its T magazine. You may win a design award but nobody will pay you for that content. Ah, but do the same thing on the iPad instead, and subscribers will pay—maybe not enough to save publishing, but enough to keep the content coming and at least some journalists, editors, and art directors employed. It’s hard to argue with money and jobs, and I wouldn’t dream of doing so. Alas, the early success of a few publications—publications so good they would doubtless survive with or without iPad—is creating a stampede that will not help most magazines and interfaces that will not please most readers.
I fully agree with Mr Zeldman. It's time to go back to simple.
