Comments on: Awesome Email of the Day: How Little You Really Know http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2010/06/10/awesome-email-of-the-day-how-little-you-really-know/ Improving the human experience one day at a time Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:24:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Matt Van Horn http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2010/06/10/awesome-email-of-the-day-how-little-you-really-know/comment-page-1/#comment-5009 Matt Van Horn Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:21:44 +0000 http://whitneyhess.com/blog/?p=3566#comment-5009 While I agree with the basic premise of not over-estimating your users, I'm not sure that "the Internet minus the nerds" is going to be as good a thing as he expects. Be careful what you wish for. It strikes me as saying McDonalds is like Per Se without the chefs, and sommeliers and those annoying epicurean patrons. It's true, and McDonald's is enormously successful, but what innovations has the fast food industry been responsible for, and how many of them have been beneficial to society as a whole? How many people would argue that the proliferation of fast-food is good for the culinary arts & sciences? How many people would like to live in a world where 95 out of 100 restaurants were McDonald's? (Which is what would happen tech-wise if the iPad/iPhone model gains the market share of Windows) I think the difference between the iPad and traditional (for-nerds) computers is that the latter encourage production, and the former only encourages consumption. For someone who likes to make stuff, a world which rewards easy consumption over hard-won learning is a depressing place. While I agree with the basic premise of not over-estimating your users, I’m not sure that “the Internet minus the nerds” is going to be as good a thing as he expects. Be careful what you wish for.

It strikes me as saying McDonalds is like Per Se without the chefs, and sommeliers and those annoying epicurean patrons.

It’s true, and McDonald’s is enormously successful, but what innovations has the fast food industry been responsible for, and how many of them have been beneficial to society as a whole? How many people would argue that the proliferation of fast-food is good for the culinary arts & sciences? How many people would like to live in a world where 95 out of 100 restaurants were McDonald’s? (Which is what would happen tech-wise if the iPad/iPhone model gains the market share of Windows)

I think the difference between the iPad and traditional (for-nerds) computers is that the latter encourage production, and the former only encourages consumption. For someone who likes to make stuff, a world which rewards easy consumption over hard-won learning is a depressing place.

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