A Land of Monopolists: From Portable Toilets to Mixed Martial Arts - <AUTHOR> https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-land-of-monopolists-from-portable <comment><USER2> 2 things I got out of this, first is how I see the same names showing up multiple times. KKR and Platinum Equity seem to have a niche for obscure monopolies. And also that is seems to be a viable strategy to start a port-a- john business to be acquired by Platinum Equity's United Site Services port-a- john empire.

Also Dana White hasn't been run out of town yet and everyday I wonder how that is still possible.

<comment><USER3> The cult of JRE fans helped give its popularity another boost, but in reality, what other league are you going to watch save a different fight sport like boxing? People like to huddle around the cooler and focus on one league (See: NFL, MLB, NBA). That's not to say WNBA or XFL don't exist, but think about the multiplier of games you'd have to keep track of with your friends for all of them.

Natural entertainment monopolies...interesting concept.

<comment><USER2> Well OneFC is a pretty viable competitor in Asian markets. I love their 4oz muay thai division. PFL seems like it has a lot of potential in the US but trying to overthrow a monopoly is hard of course.

I agree with your statement though, I've written about it before back when XFL was going on. I think there is some potential for multiple fighting orgs however. But first they need to take away some market share from UFC. Once they get on more even grounds we might see cross-promotion fights, something that is normal in boxing. As it stands though, UFC has nothing to gain from that, but Bellator/OneFC cross promotion has been floated in the past.

<comment><USER4> ONE (previously OneFC) is not a competitor in any sense of the word. They have extremely low ratings, were kicked off of ESPN for low ratings, and have to comp most tickets to every show. They are deeply unprofitable and simply burning investor (now VC) cash

<comment><USER5> Chatri said that 3 billion people watched a recent ONE event. How can you say they have low ratings?

/s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like so many articles in this space, there is a lot of assumption, claims without evidence and vague assertions. The author doesn't seem to know what Predatory Pricing is. He also dismisses economics of scale as an accounting fiddle.

I sympathetize with his general position (as life gets complex, barriers to entry rise and markets of many small companies are replaced by one's of a few big companies.

But then he gets lost in his own prejudices/conspiracy theories about harvard, financial engineering etc. Not really helpful to his wider point...

<comment><USER4> If you're not broadly familiar with Matt Stoller- he's an ideologue. He is a far, far leftist on economic issues.

>He also dismisses economics of scale as an accounting fiddle

He proposed on Twitter to make bulk discounting illegal for the entire US economy, on the theory that any kind of discounting is just predatory pricing. In other words, whether you buy 1 computer server or 10,000, 2 avocados or 2 million, the price per unit would be exactly the same. He thinks this would harm large companies and help smaller ones

<comment><USER7> > He proposed on Twitter to make bulk discounting illegal for the entire US > economy, on the theory that any kind of discounting is just predatory > pricing.

Is this a real thing? I follow Stoller on Twitter, and have never heard him say anything like that. Just that predatory pricing is often snuck in under the guise of "discounting" (which is true).

He's definitely a centrist on economic policy, which turns a lot of people away (most Americans have never heard of a centrist view of any policy of any kind, and most Americans are _far_ more conservative than they'd ever actually admit to). But nothing about him seems ideologue-ish, and he's certainly not anywhere near left-wing on economic policy.

<comment><USER8> Could you provide any example where discounting was actually proved to be predatory pricing?

How is discounting not a valid method of pricing?

<comment><USER7> Flooding a market with below-cost goods (or "discounts"), to drive out competitors so that you can generate a monopoly, is predatory pricing -- literally by textbook definition. It's also illegal, it is a direct violation of US federal anti-trust law.

[https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition- guidance/guide-a...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition- guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/predatory-or-below-cost)

No one is against "discounting" (as in, coupons for Cheerios, or discounts for bulk orders). But illegal predatory pricing is often passed through the economy under the disguise of "a discount", and it's correct for people to challenge that.

<comment><USER8> It most certainly is illegal, but can you find a definitive example of such behavior?

It's theoretically a highly illegal and unethical thing to do, but in reality, monopoly control of a market is highly unlikely.

<comment><USER7> I mean, one textbook example of that behaviour is late-90's-Microsoft --- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

Amazon's behaviour today is another example of it, but since we haven't really enforced any anti-trust laws in the past decade, it would be easy for someone to claim Amazon "doesn't count".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >"He observed that "68% of private equity buyouts are add-ons from previous acquisitions," which is to say that most acquisitions by private equity firms are attempts to expand market power for companies they already own. A quarter of these acquisitions, in fact, are "tied to an investment with at least five add-ons." Given that there are thousands of private equity firms making transactions every year, that's a lot of attempts to increase market power."

[...]

"Doing a roll-up is designed to take advantage of how capital markets value bigger companies versus small ones, or what is called multiple expansion.

 _Buying a small family owned business for three to four times its cash flow_

(or what is known in annoying accounting-speak as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, abbreviated as EBITDA), putting it into a conglomerate that financiers then call a 'platform' or 'market leader', means you can often

 _sell the much bigger company for eight to ten times that cash flow later on_."

My comments:

Buy low, sell high...

Makes sense from a pure business perspective...

</comment><comment><USER10> I worry about something like this happening with housing. PE firms are sitting on a bunch of cash currently and I can imagine a scenario in which the recent damage coronavirus + lockdowns have done to the economy leads to a bunch of foreclosures. If PE firms step in to buy these homes and to manage them at scale that will just lead to further concentration of housing wealth.

<comment><USER11> I forget the name, but there was one company that bought properties throughout the US after the 2008 market crash - we are talking about hundreds of thousands of properties here, massive scale.

I remember (2014 or so) looking for apartments in some places in NYC - I went to multiple buildings before it struck me that they were all owned by the same company. I've been a renter all my life and the situation is not good for renters.

I don't care if the super rich have mega mansions and million dollar cars. It is when they start monopolizing essential resources like water, housing etc that it becomes a serious issue.

Another thing I noticed on HN - HN doesn't seem to like landlords being criticized, I guess many people here are well off and are landlords themselves. I do not understand why a person should be allowed to own multiple houses, just because they can afford it.

There is a German town that bought apartment buildings from private companies to take charge of the out of control rent. Maybe it is time for such measures.

After healthcare, housing (mortgage or rent) is how you keep a large percentage of the population chained to their jobs and control them easily. It is also the reason tiny house movement is taking off in other countries. In the US, legislation is a bottleneck for tiny houses. Who wants to be a slave to banks for 30+ years just to have a roof over one's head (assuming one can get a loan in the first place)?

<comment><USER12> > I don't care if the super rich have mega mansions and million dollar cars. > It is when they start monopolizing essential resources like water, housing > etc that it becomes a serious issue.

If you're a billionaire, you quickly run out of mansions and cars to buy for yourself and your money has to go _somewhere_. This is why you hear statements like "billionaires shouldn't exist" \- mass acquisitions are an obvious use of that kind of capital and allow for rent-seeking behaviour on owned assets.

<comment><USER11> Water monopoly is a problem. Shitty companies like Nestle are prime examples. There are private corporations thinking of all kinds of ways to control rivers and even ground water. With water shortages being predicted all over the world, this doesn't look good. It takes a special kind of evil to control something as basic as water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not really the UFC's fault that multiple MMA promotions have also been attempted, and failed as businesses. No non-UFC promotion (Bellator, ONE, Rizin, KSW, Cage Warriors, LFA, etc.) has turned even a dime in profits in the last decade. And Bellator has signed multiple famous UFC fighters (former champs like Benson Henderson), including some (Phil Davis, Ryan Bader) at the height of their career. I don't think their ratings even budge a bit when these ex-UFC fighters are on.

I don't think the UFC should have been allowed to buy Strikeforce, and I think many of their restrictive contract provision should be struck down in court. But it's not the government's fault that none of the UFC's competitors are unable to turn a profit, and I don't really see a role for government there overall. If some business models don't work in practice, they don't work

</comment><comment><USER13> While monopolies are bad, I don't see what's listed in this article as monopolies. I see a series of small businesses that are more profitable when economies of scale are utilized. So, the small businesses are being bought up by a few larger players.

When saying this is bad, what is the author optimizing for?

This market consolidation should decrease consumer prices, as long as actual monopolies are not in place and price fixing doesn't occur. At the same time the individual owners are getting buy-outs they are happy with. Seems fine to me.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER14> > I see a series of small businesses that are more profitable when economies > of scale are utilized

That is literally the definition of monopolizing...

> market consolidation

Again, that's just another word for monopolizing...

It reminds me of people who say "I, as a man, like having sex with other men — but no, I am not gay or bisexual"

It's like society has become 'definition phobic'? Or maybe some words have lost their old definitions and have taken on new ones? Or it's just Doublespeak and everyone is fragmented and we lack decent complex adaptive systems?

The rules for what consists of a monopoly are somewhat arbitrary anyway. I think we should have worker coops everywhere, instead of this American/English-style Neoliberal Corporatism, which often takes away people's autonomy and creates a whole array of bureacratic corporate hierarchies. A company in the Netherlands called Buurtzorg is having a lot of success organizing themselves very differently than the hyper-consolidation that we have seen the healthcare systems in the West become victim to. [1]

-

> What am I missing?

I don't even know where to start...

Have you been in therapy or sought professional help? Many therapists now have to work within one size fits all models. For example: in some countries patients get therapy sessions in blocks of 12. Regardless of wether they would benefit from just 2-3 sessions. Or maybe around 25, spread out over a year, is what would best support them. This cookie-cutter standardization approach completely destroys equitable and personalized healthcare options, and takes away the autonomy of therapists.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/20/radical- plan...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/20/radical-plans-power- back-social-workers-families)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's the paradox of capitalism. Just ask yourself. Why in the world would a business want to compete with another business? They don't, it's not profitable. And only X amount of businesses can exist within a given radius before profits margins decline to the point of nonexistence. It's all a zero sum game. That's why established monopolies are protected by the system.

</comment><comment><USER16> It seems like the only solution to these types of rollouts happening in every industry may be based in law. The economics of rollouts make it impossible to compete in any other way.

</comment><comment><USER17> WashPo: "The End of Small Business"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815212)

</comment><comment><USER18> "private equity" is not a company, its an industry - so its not clear to me why only _one_ private equity company at a tine would try to cash in on this opportunity? And if _several_ such companies are trying to do the same thing, then its unlikely that _any_ of them will become a monopoly.

Its like worrying about "real estate investors" getting a "monopoly" on the ownership of houses - it's not going to happen. Real estate investors are _part_ of the market, and having an additional source of demand tends to raise prices, which is bad for _new_ buyers and good for _existing_ homeowners. But there is no monopoly.

<comment><USER19> While we may never see a monopoly on owning the house itself, we are well on our way to seeing at least one monopoly in the home buying process. [0][1]

[0][https://www.alta.org/business-tools/title-insurance- mergers....](https://www.alta.org/business-tools/title-insurance-mergers.cfm) [1][https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2019/09/ftc-c...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2019/09/ftc-challenges-proposed-12-billion-merger-title-insurance)

<comment><USER18> Or we would if the FTC didn't try and block it - isn't this the way an antitrust regulator _should_ work?

<comment><USER19> You are right that the system worked as intended, for now. Give it a little time and a few more lobbying dollars. This opportunity is too lucrative to pass up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Matt Stoller's posts on monopoly remind of this aphorism:

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail."

</comment><comment><USER21> >But [a bunch of accusations against a hedge fund] show all the fancy nonsense about economic efficiency and capital market fluidity is just that

</comment><comment><USER22> > "It would also help if it were much easier to bring and win private > antitrust suits, so that we don't have to rely on inept government > enforcers."

the examples enumeration is good information, but to me, this quoted bit would have been a better jumping off point for an article.

what are the precedents and barriers to private antitrust suits?

monopolies are a scourge and a bane to free markets.</comment>


GroupOn: a license to print money - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/web/37985/ http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/07/24/how-much-is-a-user-worth/ <comment><AUTHOR> I submitted the article and must add that the data in it is rather unbelievable.

A different article has GroupOn's Average Revenue per User at 8.6 USD <http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/07/24/how-much-is-a-user-worth/>.

One more article has the average revenue/subscriber at 9$ [http://www.dmnews.com/groupons-q2-revenue-rises-but-net- inco...](http://www.dmnews.com/groupons-q2-revenue-rises-but-net-income-free- falls/article/209385/)

This is still 4 times more than LinkedIn's average Revenue per User. Where as Linked in has a valuation 47 times the Revenue/User, GroupOn has "only" a valuation of 31 times the Revenue/User.

Assuming the data is correct, I really don't understand the "GroupOn bashing" in Hacker News comments. All of the last articles about GroupOn I read where predicting that this Ponzi-scheme has no future.

Is there some fundamental metrics I am missing? Or is GroupOn really a very profitable business once they get the expenses under control?

</comment><comment><USER2> There is a claim of ~$80 per "Active User", but what is an active user? The article conveniently ignores those figures.</comment>


Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/EBgLFSHEFAK <comment><USER2> I think a lot of people are missing the point of what Linus is saying somewhat.

He's really just addressing the elephant in the room by saying that as of yet the whole open source desktop mess has failed to produce anything that looks like a compelling , easy to use desktop.

If Google can produce a Linux based operating system that addresses the needs of casual users and power users/technophiles (like Linus) and get it on enough hardware (i.e not just netbooks but "serious" desktops as well) then they can (combined with android) simply eat everyone elses lunch.

What is not so important necessarily is whether or not local storage or local apps will "go away" but that Google understands that a modern OS needs to treat "the cloud", i.e webapps , online storage , social networks as first class citizens inside the OS. This is a metaphor that is missing (in a really intuitive form) mostly from even new OSes like Windows 8.

Hard disks are not dead, but I think the idea of having C:\Program Files\\.. is. Even as a technical user myself the directory hierarchy is mostly just an abstraction that gets in my way. My work (i.e source code) is in git, my games are in Steam, my email is at google , my music on Spotify and all the "other stuff" is in dropbox.

What I need is an OS that ties all of these things together seamless regardless of whether the bytes themselves reside on the disk inside my computer or on some website somewhere but can provide sufficient tools when needed to fix leaky abstractions.

Let's suppose you could buy a new workstation soon that ran a nice clean Chrome OS desktop but had sufficient memory and hardware level virtualization that simply clipping in a "proper" Linux or all the MS libraries such as DirectX that you needed to run Windows apps was a trivial activity that could be abstracted away from the end user if required. Would you not be curious to buy one?

<comment><USER3> _He's really just addressing the elephant in the room by saying that as of yet the whole open source desktop mess has failed to produce anything that looks like a compelling , easy to use desktop.

If Google can produce a Linux based operating system that addresses the needs of casual users... [they can] simply eat everyone elses lunch._

He also addresses the elephant in the room that the major Linux UI pushes that consciously and grandly targeted those goals were grand steps backwards. That the things the UI prognosticators _think_ users want, like abstraction and simplification, alienated real Linux users like Linus. That normal users missed features the UI cognoscenti banished as "too confusing," such as "easy mouse configurability for things like how to launch applications."

When you talk about abstraction, metaphors, making the filesystem invisible to users, and (most telling of all) appealing to "casual users" it sounds like more of the same talk that we've had for many years now. The more grand and self-conscious the community gets about user interfaces, and the more they target non-techie users, the less useful the desktop environments become for their actual users. That missing configurability that Linus laments, which was sacrificed for the sake of "casual" users -- did we really attract a bunch of casual users? Did we eat anyone's lunch, take market share from OSX or Windows? Or did we just make our desktop environments less usable for the people who actually use them?

Linus says GNOME was "useless" without that configurability, and that this new device might be usable as a laptop if it had a terminal and a development environment. That doesn't sound like a call for Linux environments to appeal to "casual" users. I don't think Linus is asking for even more simplifications to get in the way of his usage, like abstracting away the filesystem.

The elephant in the room is that Linux desktop environments did a better job of giving Linux users what they wanted when that's all they tried to do. Trying to give us what we didn't know we wanted has been a failure. Targeting non-techie users has gained us nothing that we didn't already want for ourselves. It's time for the community to get off its high horse about UIs and go back to what it's good at, which is humbly (and very successfully) catering to its own needs. And nobody should feel ashamed of creating or using an operating system that never eats Apple's or Microsoft's lunch (isn't that such a ten years ago obsession?)

(P.S. You know what's good at abstracting away the filesystem when and how it's appropriate? Applications.)

<comment><USER4> For most of the 90s I remember hearing how Linux was so stupid because it was derivative and behind the times and never innovated.

Now whenever there is an innovation, it is reviled and everyone asks for the interface which looked roughly like Windows 95.

So I guess they listened to the wrong messages.

<comment><USER3> What I remember people complaining about in the 90s was that UIs were unstable and it was really hard to get X set up at all. Any complaints they had about UI design were muffled by the tears of joy they shed when they finally saw the black X on the screen instead of junk and patterns. But in all seriousness, I'm not against innovation at all. I'd just like to hear about some innovation aimed at existing Linux users rather than insisting that the users who _really_ matter are the casual, non-techie users necessary for mainstream desktop adoption.

Targeting "casual" users has resulted in some valuable work such as better stability and completeness in many programs, simpler configuration interfaces for many things (such as wireless configuration GUIs that were better than Windows'), and better support for multimedia. However (leaving aside the fact that those were all things that techie users were begging for anyway) there was a downside. Customizability and configuration options disappeared. People made assumptions about "normal" users that implicitly labeled a large chunk of the Linux community abnormal. Case in point: if you configured your wireless connection using NetworkManager and then switched to a different desktop environment, your wireless connection might not work anymore. That might sound like a bug, but it wasn't. It wasn't designed to work that way. How could that be considered remotely acceptable? Because normal people don't use alternative desktop environments. (Thankfully, I've since read that NetworkManager accepts plugins that write to the correct system configuration files, though I don't know if distros test and install them.)

And where's the payoff? What was the payoff supposed to be, anyway? Back in the nineties and early 2000s many people assumed Linux had to make it on the mainstream desktop in order to be successful, but I think we've put that that misconception behind us. Yet people still hold up the "casual user" as the gold standard that Linux is supposed to cater to, as if it were a moral imperative. Few Linux users fit that stereotype. It isn't that we're concretely knowledgeable about Linux. If you put ten randomly chosen Linux users in a room, chances are that for every component of a running Linux system there will be somebody in the room who is utterly unfamiliar with how it works or how to configure it. Obviously we should cater to ignorance, if only so we have the luxury of remaining ignorant ourselves. But there is a general savoir faire with computers that it is acceptable to assume. By savoir faire I mean whatever factor it is that explains why I am the person in my family who always gets a call on the phone when someone needs help with Windows 7. Even though I've never developed on Windows, haven't used Windows for anything more than e-mail, web browsing, and Office in ten years, even though I haven't used Windows personally in six months, _even though I've never used Windows 7 or Vista at all._ They still ask me for help with Windows 7, and usually I can help them.

All I'm saying is that it's acceptable for Linux UI designers to assume that the people using their UIs are likely to resemble current and past Linux users. Take a break from innovating for projected, postulated, hoped-for users. Innovate for the ones we already have instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most interesting thing to me about each of these little episodes is how Linus, by creating the brilliant Linux kernel, is lauded as a sort-of-oracle when giving his opinion about very non-kernel things. I quite like the simple, opinionated approach to Gnome and Unity but my opinion (and others who may agree with me) matters somehow less because I didn't create this great thing that has nothing to do with UI design philosophy.

I guess that's the true value of geek cred.

<comment><USER4> I suspect that the people who approve what Linus says on this matter are the people who already agree with what he says on this matter. Already having this kind of opinion, it feels good for some smart high-profile to say it in an articulate way.

It's true that liking Gnome and/or Unity seems to have a kind of stigma these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think all the comments about the benefits/detriments of Chrome OS as a whole are a little off topic. I think the most important element of this piece is Torvalds' recognition that "simple" UI doesn't need to limit a user's ability to visually organize.

I completely agree with his comparison to GTK3 (and I think the same applies to Unity). Forcing users into a singular workflow with limited options will always seem somewhat inhibiting, regardless of how "easy to use" the UI may seem. This crucial element is lacking from these modern Linux window managers.

</comment><comment><USER7> The understated comment in his post that really caught my eye was this:

 _"Today it decided to update itself to the new chrome version with the Aura window manager."_

This will be a boon to the average user, as they'll have constantly up-to-date software, and security holes can get patched as quickly as they're found. That said, I would be concerned with things changing like that without my control, but I expect I'm in the minority.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is one of my heroes, he never has let me down in his opinions. No BS, straight talk, one of the very few relevant people still not sold out in this business.

Turning the desktop into a retarded terminal for some company's javascript apps is a bad idea, but some can't seem to grasp that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone have a link to screenshots of the Aura UI?

<comment><USER10> [http://googlesystem.blogspot.jp/2012/04/new-window- manager-f...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.jp/2012/04/new-window-manager-for- chrome-os.html)

<comment><USER11> Looks like Windows 7 if it had OS X's launchpad.

<comment><USER12> I bet they wanted to make the UI as Windows like as possible because that's what most of the users are used to. The fact the chrome icon sits where the 'start' button sits on windows clearly isn't a coincidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apparently it _does_ have a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).

</comment><comment><USER14> It saddens me that Chrome OS is switching from full-screen windows to a stacking metaphor. The opportunity to move to a tiling (even just two columns like Metro) paradigm was there and would be a natural extension of the tab metaphor.

Disappointing, although I'm happy to see progress towards an OS that treats web apps as first-class.

<comment><USER15> Aura does do 2 column tiling

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like the cloud, but I really hate giving out control of my data. It makes a lot of sense for public data (tweets, blogposts), which you want to share anyways.

I see a lot of potential in a "drop": a personal cloud server installed at home, with the same user friendliness as e.g. google docs. Public data/services in the cloud, personal stuff at home. There still is enough opportunity to integrate mmoc? (massively multiple online collaboration?) into those apps. An example of this might be diaspora.

Many drops make a cloud, too.

<comment><USER17> I desire something along similar lines, TonidoPlug plus a rich app store. Owned by me. Plug in and log on simplicity. The option to mirror it up on a VPS rented by me if/when it needs a fatter pipe than my home connection. And mmoc (massively multiple online collaboration) instead of Facebook et alia sounds great to me. If someone wants to buy/use data about me, I would like them to have to come negotiate with the source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> While reading the post, I was not sure if the tone was sarcastic or genuine! On a second read, it does feel like a genuine comment. Some folks should use 'Not Sarcasm' tag!

<comment><USER8> That's the Linus way. You never know when he's being sarcastic, but mostly he's being serious with a few sarcastic turns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree, especially about the Atom processor This computer is mid priced. Other laptops in that price range use real CPUs.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't think a new UI is enough to make Chromebooks suddenly matter. I got one at a conference and ended up giving it to a friend because the build quality and specs were terrible - it looked and felt and ran crap without even taking into consideration how different they are to _use_.

<comment><USER10> What's sad is that they couldn't get the original Chrome OS to _feel_ any faster in use than Windows 7 on Atom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've never had the chance to try Chromebook yet, so does anyone know whether Chromebook has a native terminal & a good text editor? I would love to turn it into a web development environment.

</comment><comment><USER22> i've been using the first gen chromebooks since they came out and have to say that the UI is a lot better than before. it felt like you could not escape the browser unless you closed all your tabs or shut it off, but with aura you feel at home with a "desktop" experience that just seems right.

the hardware is another story...they're great for light browsing and netflix...kinda.

</comment><comment><USER23> UIs that have worked for people for years should never be replaced.

<comment><USER24> So we should all be using the windows 3.1 ui?

<comment><USER23> Close.

I've been using WindowMaker for 10 years. It's pretty perfect. No gimmicks. No unnecessary features. Lots of flexibility. Minimal. User friendly. Fast. Stable. _It just works._

If someone has used Windows 95 before, a whole slew of operating systems after will be intuitive and a random user will know how to use it without instruction. They don't need anything more advanced. They just need it not to crash or bloat or change and become confusing. Most people just want shit to work.

<comment><USER24> Last time I used windowmaker it required hand editing config files, thats a pretty long way from shit that just work for most people.

<comment><USER23> I've been using this handy graphical tool called WPrefs that ships with WindowMaker (since at least 1998). The only time I hand-edited a config or menu was to enable functionality which nobody ever used (hiding all dock items but keeping icons small and visible and preserving both global and virtual desktop-specific icons/windows depending on context).

<comment><USER24> I think I last used windowmaker around 2004 and I have a distinct recollection of editing configfiles. Maybe I am remembering wrong.

I still think that OSX provides a much better GUI than WM, which should not have been introduced according to your logic and so people would miss out on improvements (but i miss focus follows mouse...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Time to boot back into Chrome OS on my Cr-48!

<comment><USER25> Maybe not, though:

"The latest Chrome OS release is only available for Samsung and Acer Chromebooks as Cr-48 Chromebooks will skip Chrome 19."

from [http://googlesystem.blogspot.jp/2012/04/new-window- manager-f...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.jp/2012/04/new-window-manager-for- chrome-os.html)

<comment><USER26> Google will be adding support for the Cr-48 in Chrome OS 20.

From the comments: [http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2012/04/dev- channel...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2012/04/dev-channel- update-for-chromebooks.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. Native apps running locally on your computer are going to be thing of the past, and it simply blows my mind that even people here on HackerNews completely fail to understand this fact.

The computing landscape is changing right now, and any company that revolves around servicing Windows desktop software is going to be in for a real hard time.

Whether or not Google's Chrome OS is the eventual successor is not clear (I don't think it is), but their general idea is correct. The all-network, all- cloud world is coming whether you like it or not.

<comment><USER28> Great, another prophet. Worst thing is, if you somehow are correct, you would not stop shoving it in people's faces how right you are. Cloud is not the future, not with the current US internet infrastructure at least.

Also why would someone pay 10 dollars a month for 50 GB of space in the cloud when you can buy 1 TB portable hard drives for dirt cheap?

<comment><USER29> > Also why would someone pay 10 dollars a month for 50 GB of space in the > cloud when you can buy 1 TB portable hard drives for dirt cheap?

housefires.

<comment><USER30> If anything I'd be more worried about thieves stealing my data. (In the literal, 'break into my house and take it.' sort of way.)

I know it's happened to at least one indie developer. And at least one youtube blogger that comes to mind.

That having been said, local hard drives aren't going to die anytime soon. Uncle McCarthy has not yet had his day, at least not on that one.

<comment><USER31> You know, encryption and a decently strong password pretty much seals the deal on somebody physically stealing your data. There is no reason to _not_ encrypt your home computer if you are so concerned.

<comment><USER30> >You know, encryption and a decently strong password pretty much seals the deal on somebody physically stealing your data.

Maybe stealing it and _using the data._ If someone swipes my drive the data is still gone. Even if it is inaccessible.

<comment><USER32> Backups, offsite too.

<comment><USER33> When you consider the time and effort required for a good offsite backup, it's easier to just pay the $10/month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I didn't know Aura was making such progress until my buddy got it on his CR48. I'm tempted to remove Ubuntu and reinstall crOS to use it longer, but I also still really appreciate my full Ubuntu environment.

If I recall correctly, Aura also serves as a real proper full window manager and already has support for Wayland too!

</comment><comment><USER35> Love Linus but I think he is excited that someone is taking on Windows (cough cough :)). Files on cloud are great, until you get locked out and lose everything so...

</comment><comment><USER36> Chrysis (cough cough)

</comment><comment><USER37> Nobody else thinks it's an odd coincidence that this post by Linus and a post by Douglas Crockford both on Google Plus were submitted two hours apart?

To clarify, I don't think it's a coincidence and I think Google employees probably submitted these.

<comment><USER30> And?

They were both worthy of submission IMO.

(The Douglas Crockford post more than this one though.)</comment></comment>


We Need An FDA for Computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/we-need-an-fda-for-computers.php

<comment><USER2> Please no, computing in general has flourished because we have navigated well clear of any massive regulation. Regulation will only serve to protect established players and create a large barrier to entry. Innovation will suffer and everything will slow down. We already have regulations on critical technology like missile systems, life support systems and avionics. We do not need regulation on general purpose computing devices.</comment>