ergomarky's comments

ergomarky | 7 years ago | on: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

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.

ergomarky | 7 years ago | on: Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire GitHub

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.

ergomarky | 7 years ago | on: Microsoft and GitHub have held acquisition talks

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image looks completely different to those who don't really care for what's happening at MSFT - they just seem like an outdated Apple.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.

ergomarky | 7 years ago | on: Digital Capitalism’s War on Leisure

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.

ergomarky | 7 years ago | on: Facebook management moves around but people don’t leave

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.

ergomarky | 7 years ago | on: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

>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.

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