Can you pull off a kimono and a fan, Barrister Ken White San?

It’s called security by obfuscation - in this case it’s security by archaization. But it only holds so long before someone really patient comes along.

@kagi.com is really good.

That has always been the case - in the context of this particular question and especially among young men. When you’re young you have supreme confidence in what you believe and being able and wanting others to just “get things done”. Then you mature. Then senility kicks in. It’s the circle of life.

They didn’t have the conviction to stay the course. Zune was an amazing product. Zune app was amazing. The subscription service which included one free album was amazing. I preferred it in every way over iTunes. Never could understand why they’d just let it all burn.

You’re underestimating how easy it’d be convince a whole bunch of rich people to invest in an AI managed fund. You still need an army of schmoozers but don’t need the number of senior partners nor the number of VCs that exist today.

It was hard for indies to get paid. It was hard for a customer to trust. I grew up in a so-called low trust society. The world of software was one.
Whether we like it or not, the App Store is the equivalent of a credit card network. The intermediary that establishes the trust between two parties.

It was extremely common for software to bundle absolutely bullshit stuff. Does anyone remember the number of software programs that would force install a toolbar for your browser? That was a legitimate business model back in the day.
On the other side of this was extremely common piracy.

The USA Today once published this with zero irony

I’d still recommend the economist over WSJ any day.

You never needed an army of developers. In fact, after about 20 or so of good engineers, the overhead of managing a large team - tools, processes, managers - not to mention the inefficiencies, duplicative work …etc. just didn’t add any tangible benefit.

I sat through a presentation by an Uber team about a product they had custom built that I’d have replaced with some open source and out of the box. I worked on a team that hand built an ORM. Working on one that’s building a “scheduler” - Microsoft booking exists and so does a hundred others.

It was done because clueless VCs thought that made the “startup” a true growth startup. Even Amazon back in the day would keep team sizes to about 7-10. That’s the sweet spot were you get things done. Large “army” of developers was always a charade. Same charade as the AI one now.

You never needed an army of developers. In fact, after about 20 or so of good engineers, the overhead of managing a large team - tools, processes, managers - not to mention the inefficiencies, duplicative work …etc. just didn’t add any tangible benefit.

Pluralistic culture. Unity in diversity. We both have a national identity that overcomes the “hyphen”*. Take that EU! I think a single market federal structure is not given as much credit as it should get - culture and innovation thrives

econ.st/3X7HcCy

*Conditions apply - unfortunately

Did you try the original British version? May be that has a better clue?