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It’s a good read, but he then back on it all and went all Apple. So it’s a bit bitter sweat. Snow Crash is probably better.
I knew quite a few linux fans who went with Apple laptops when OSX came out. At the time it was the best thing available that had unix under the hood which made it really powerful in the right hands.
If they were more about UNIX than freedom, that could make sense back then. These days, you miss out on loads on of open stuff and are very much a third class citizen. After Linux and Windows, as the platform has neither freedom or a large user base. Macports seams to regularly have talks about how they are shunned and ignored.
Lamina1 is enough to prove Stephenson is kind of full of shit.
It’s such a joke it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia entry. It’s just a footnote on Stephenson’s.
I’m just gonna call it like I sees it:
I put Stephenson in the same camp as Orson Scott Card.
He had a single book with some really brilliant and thoughtful ideas… and that’s about it. People need money to stay alive, and can always be swayed by it.
That’s not fair. Multiple books of his books are award winning. Even if you only like one, the critics rate him. Other writers, rate him.
Hang on a second. Orson Scott Card is a homophobic motherfuck. What’d NS do that is so bad?
He’s into NFTs, if there’s something else idk about it
Them again, “a single book with some really brilliant and thoughtful ideas” is one book more than most authors, much less internet commenters will ever put out.
I just finished this, yes it took me a month.
I found his literary style, very compelling, it was a fun read.
I found his predictions while interesting, not very clairvoyant. BeOS is sadly no longer with us.
I did like his tie-in to the Church of the simulation at the end, though this predates the official organization of such an church.
I think it was a thought-provoking essay, I disagreed with some aspects of this predictions, especially around what a monopoly is. It’s thought-provoking. It’s a good read. It is not gospel
He did talk about hacker culture, and anybody being able to fix anything, but was not able to make the connection between BeOS and proprietary license and Linux with an open license.
I agree with all you’ve said. Especially the monopoly part is where I disagreed the most. This is a good document to inform people about the ideology behind computers. Well, would be if not for those mistakes you have mentioned.
Other than those, as you have said, it’s a thought-provoking essay.