Creating a simple application that had a database backend, data presentation gui and some simple CRUD logic took like 15-30 mins. All from scratch. How does it compare to today’s tools? And I am not talking about taking some ready off the shelf solution that you don’t really understand internally…

Those were good times and I really regret all those mishaps that happened to this great ecosystem and its eventual collapse :(

Would you share the link to the answer?

It probably starts with the habit of writing words without using the Shift key or diacritics. Just to be quick. At least, that’s how I’ve noticed this behavior in myself.

I've seen - and used - such nocaps patterns as far back as the 90's on IRC.

As I remember there was no singular reason; not having to pinky-press shift was definitely a factor.

There are also some medieval reenactment groups who do some real battles (with rules of course) and that is totally about fighting with each other. Something like a fight club but set in medieval context.

The Royal Armouries in Leeds, England has that. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

adjust that for the population...

Couldn’t disagree more… if you go the ZMQ you are left alone handling many things you get in Kafka for free. If you have any sort of big data problems then good luck. You are going to reinvent the wheel.

Actually the manifesto is linked in the second paragraph. Reading this page and then the manifesto was good experience for me.

There is this theory of „adjacent possible”, that quite well explains why the technology develops the way it does. Some enabler technologies or inventions or even economy are just not just there yet for next thing to happen.

Is there actually any browser that could store streaming content before displaying it, after all decoding etc?

Well, there is yt-dlp, if you count that as a browser. It has hacks for downloading from nearly every website that has weak DRM. It also has a fallback for guessing how to download from arbitrary websites.

If you mean drm'd content, I think that's hopeless now, the security is at the hypervisor level nowadays. I can't even play that content on my old vga monitors. For the average youtube video, I don't see why not in principle.

"after all decoding" isn't desirable because then you have to re-encode it, incurring generation loss.

The counterarguments are really weak to refuse the analogy. They actually might convince a more aware reader that the opposite is true. E.g. Voluntary participation argument asserts that everyone has choice. This is equally true as saying that an alcoholic can simply stop drinking. In the economy where the winner takes all this is not that easy…

There's also an issue that many tech savvy people miss: Most people have a very hard time using and understanding software, even if they use it regularly.

The attack surface of people who are easy to manipulate or exploit by Big Tech is shockingly large. But it's not just about personal responsibility or social pressures, but in large parts just about a lack of technical competency and internet literacy that the vast majority of people can't afford to get and maintain.

I read the book and the post. I’m glad to see the rebuttal so weak, it strengthens my conviction that Yanis is onto something and is using historical analogies appropriately.

While most arguments are just technical gotchas, there’s a fundamental topological difference: in a feudal system you have one lord (apparently, you could generally not move without permission). With the new ”cloud serfs” you maintain multiple relations with different lords. Thus, you currently have more freedom of association- and migration compared to actual serfs, to a meaningful extent.

The system is very recent though, and consolidation of power (often through acquisitions) is already massively common and in every lord’s playbook. If they could, the mega-corps would absolutely want to buy other megacorps. Overall the system looks nothing like the idealized version of ”free markets” as taught in schools.

Free markets are wonderful, but they require free agents to participate in them. That includes consumers and workers. Noam Chomsky even described Amazon as a totalitarian employer once I think.

I find it distasteful to use the ideal of free markets to defend large, oligopolistic corporations, their atrocious business practices towards consumers, workers and partners and their irresponsible treatment of the environment.

Those aren't your entrepreneurial ventures that participate in a free market. They are established institutions that can exert extreme power in economic, legal and political terms.

I really don't understand what mechanisms could exist in an ideal free market to stop monopolies. What is a monopoly other than a hyper-successful agent on the free market? What kind of a free market is one that would restrict such a monopoly? It's incoherent.

Why obsess over idealism and purity? We (most of us) don’t do that with individual liberty. Sure, we should have guiding principles for deciding how to regulate markets, just like we have for civil liberties. But for everyone except anarcho-capitalists, bikeshedding the purest philosophical interpretation is just navel-gazing.

I think the weakest of some pretty weak points by the author. The involuntary and extractive nature of the system is precisely what makes the feudal analogy strong.

Sure, there are pressures for resource procurement that influence our decision making.

The difference is whether the hierarchy is baked into the legal system and less difficult to vertically navigate.