Meta trends - what have we learned?

Posted by jaslar
Dec 31, 2013 at 05:04 AM

Yes, thank you, that’s one of the things I wanted to say. I want things to be just complex enough to accomplish my few tasks, but not so complicated that I forget what I wanted to do, and can no longer remember where that function might be. I’ve thought for a long time that Gedit (Linux Gnome text editor) with an outliner plugin (expand, collapse, drag and drop) would take care of most of my computer needs.

But Gedit is free. And as several folks have pointed out, why bother developing something free for a niche platform? I’ve been waiting a long time for that modest little plugin.

So I think it’s true that the market constraint is to develop a small set of features, compellingly presented, that can be quickly distributed across many platforms for a small amount of money. The same kind of thing is going on in the world of publishing: small, independent authors getting works to ubiquitous platforms, selling them cheap, but sacrificing a bit of review and quality control. In the process, offering immediacy for the smartphone generation. But also, perhaps, making a little more money per person because the overhead is lower. But also also, maybe refining interfaces in a useful way, excising the cruft of over-elaborate design.