Because Shiny Things Are Fun - The New New Windows v Linux Thread

Unfortunately M$ can and will be able to fight Chrome OS by hook or by crook. They have the money to either buy another lawsuit or coerce some computer manufacturer into making a netbook so cheap they can almost give them away. Think about that after all this is the microslop way!!!

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn And here's how I think Chrome OS *will* turn the tables:

To turn the tables it should first become popular.
My main questions were:

• who is going to buy it?
• why would anybody choose chrome instead of already available alternatives?

Your reply ignores them.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn [*] The reason why most Web browsers are free is because they are heavily supported by ads.

Proof?
I don't remember any adware being installed along with opera/IE. I also don't remember seeing advertising popups/banners generated by browser.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn [*] As such, even though Chrome OS is free, Google is still making money off of it.

Proof?
Hardware manufacturers will gain profits, that's for sure, but that's once device is actually released.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn [*] There also is plenty of shareware, trialware, and proprietary freeware on the Chrome Web Store that can easily be used for Chrome OS OEMs to make money on.

There is already a flood of useless shareware/trialware/freeware applications for windows and mobile platforms, but I don't remember ever encountering a person that bought windows machine or a cellphone because this market exists.
It looks like people *first* buy PC/cellphone, and only after that they start wasting their time with apps. OR they buy windows machine to use certain expensive platform-specific exclusive.
Besides, the flood of applications doesn't look conventional for me - when there are too many things to choose from, it is hard to find the one you really need.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn Also, Chrome OS "crapware" is easy to create,

Proof? Making crapware is still programming. Programming is not easy. Also "crapware" doesn't sound attractive.
What toolkits/compilers/languages/frameworks are available to the dev?
Is there a list of common functionality supported on every single possible chrome device? Is there a good documentation?
Also, is there a warranty this thing will evolve into stable platform and that somebody won't cause major screw up by introducing 50 different chrome forks?

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn [*] The people will choose the $50 Chrome OS devices hands-down over the $500 Windows PCs, and Microsoft's market share will be undermined

Why do you think it'll be $50? Many GPUs/CPUs and Input devices cost more than that. AFAIK, the price for CR-48 is not known yet. I don't think it'll be $50. I'd expect at least $300 (cheapest LINUX notebook in my area). Besides, wikipedia says that price will be $300..$400 (which sounds reasonable compared to other products on the market):

Originally Posted by wikipedia In April 2010, Schmidt indicated that he expected prices for Chrome OS netbooks to range from US$300 to $400, and thus be similar in cost to comparable devices that ship with closed source operating systems. He also confirmed that Google will supply the operating system for free, but it will be up to hardware manufacturers and retailers to set their own prices for the devices. When Schmidt was asked about the likelihood of phone companies bundling low cost or free netbooks with service contracts, he responded, "If a phone company chose to do that then that would be great."[55]

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn [*] This in turn will cause people to support Chrome OS more, selling more and more software that can easily be used by PC manufacturers to make money.

"PC manufacturers"? Didn't you mean to say "Chrome-based notebook manufacturers".
Chrome is still Linux. And while it will (probably) work fine on Cr-48, it still doesn't solve standard linux problems - unsupported USB devices, for example - when somebody will try to install it on PC.
Also, if wikipedia is correct and Chrome OS license is BSD, then google can easily make most of it closed source (to be precise, they can close every part of chrome under BSD(or compatible) license). BSD license allows that.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn [*] And this will cause an endless loop of support, obtain, support.

"And so they lived happily ever after". Yeah, right...

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn Now I don't know about you, but this certainly sounds reasonable to me.

Definitely sounds like a fairy-tale to me - too many assumptions/uncertainties, doesn't look like well-thought idea. I'd say there is 0.1% chance that this will happen (subjective).

If I understood you correctly, you expect that Chrome OS will be filled with advertising from both internet/apps, there will be a sea of "crapware" made by manufacturers, and that is supposed to make it more attractive to end user. I'm not the only person that hates advertsing (there is a reason why AdBlock exists), and I'm not sure how exactly ads are supposed to make Chrome better. Not to mention that existence of internet ADs isn't exactly right (internet is subscription-based, and IMO any company that can't survive without pushing unwanted ADs on me deserves to die). There are also no well-known platform-specific tools and games I know/heard of, so no reason to switch. Because it is ubuntu-based, I actually have reasons to stay away from it. Device is marketed as internet-oriented, which means in any area without internet it is useless. Retail price is not known, but you for some reason expect it to be $50 (2GB of PC RAM costs more), even though it is still a notebook.

You also didn't answer important questions:

• who is going to buy it?
• why would anybody choose chrome instead of already available alternatives?

Answer "Because it is Linux and because it is free" is not good enough.

P.S. Definitely feel like it is a massive waste of time...

Kenny,

Interesting and thoughtful scenario.....but I think one of things you overlook is that consumers are already over-saturated with advertising. I think we will soon be seeing less emphasis on revenues from selling ad space as ads become less and less cost-effective. To some extent, we have already seen this in microcosm (You may be too young to have seen this) when looking at the internet about 10 years ago. In the 90's and very early 00's, there were just so many more free services available on the net- it was like practically anything you could do on the net was free (all supported by advertising)- You could even get dial-up internet service for free, if you were willing to view ad banners.

The net became so saturated with advertising, that the value of advertising space declined to the point where most companies either had tyo curtail their free services, or had to severely restrict them (for instance, I believe a few of the freebie ISPs still offer free service, but it is very limited now- to something like 10 hours per month- thus being virtually worthless)

I think in all fields, we have reached the point of over-saturation now when it comes to advertising, to the point where ads are at best becoming inefficient, or at worst, being totally ignored by consumers, who have become so used to just blocking them ouit, consciously or otherwise.

You rarely hear anyone mention this fact- I think it is being kept as quiet as possible for as long as possible, but I think pretty soon it will become more obvious to more people and the advertising "bubble" will burst, just like the real estate bubble and the dot-com bubble, as I think it is now already an assumption in the advertising business that is accepted by those in the know- and once more execs start to realize it, the pin will start pricking the bubble....

Another thing which may hinder Chrome OS, is people's experience with the Chrome browser. While it is a good browser, and I using it right now (Chromium, naturally), it does show just how invasive of one's privacy things Google are. That alone would keep me ever using their OS. (One could only imagine the horrors!) Personally, I see little difference between Google and MS. For those of us who care, we discover real Linux and live happily ever after; For the rest....they'll likely stay with Win-D'ohs until and if such time as they start to care.

Originally Posted by tiredofbilkyyaforallican Unfortunately M$ can and will be able to fight Chrome OS by hook or by crook. They have the money to either buy another lawsuit or coerce some computer manufacturer into making a netbook so cheap they can almost give them away. Think about that after all this is the microslop way!!!

And it wouldn't surprise me a bit, if they somehow coerced the manufacturers into somehow making it so that one could never install a non-Winows OS on their products. As Linux becomes more and more popular, that may be a distinct reality- after all, they wouldn't want to be giving away those netbooks for next to nothing, if the user were going to just wipe Win-D'ohs and install Linux. This to some extent is probably already somewhat true, as I'll bet the installation of Linux on a Win-D'ohs machine either voids the warranty or the tech support...or both.

I'll bet the installation of Linux on a Win-D'ohs machine either voids the warranty or the tech support...or both.

When I got my lappy (got it from Best Buy ), they of course asked me if I wanted all the extra warranty protection, "Geek Squad" whatnot, antivirus package, etc. I just declined everything, because a) I knew most of it wouldn't apply anyway, and b) I knew I was probably going to void whatever warranty they were offering. Never mentioned the L-word, though.

Originally Posted by SigTerm Why do you think it'll be $50? Many GPUs/CPUs and Input devices cost more than that. AFAIK, the price for CR-48 is not known yet. I don't think it'll be $50. I'd expect at least $300 (cheapest LINUX notebook in my area). Besides, wikipedia says that price will be $300..$400 (which sounds reasonable compared to other products on the market):

Okay, maybe I was extrapolating a little far-fetched on the price, but in my opinion despite the fact that the early pricing may be high, it will come down fast because of the ad revenue that companies would make. Maybe Chrome OS devices would be $300 at first, but they could drop down to less than $100 down the road especially if companies (that is, PC manufacturers) have software developers (especially those of Software as a Service [SaaS]) paying them money to put trialware Web services on their Chrome OS devices that after a certain amount of time require a subscription fee. Why? Because subscription fees bring in more money than purchased software, especially in the long run. If someone decides to have trialware suddenly require a monthly fee to run, it is a constant flow of money that the software developer is paying the OEM, not just a one-time fee.

And when I said stuff about the adware for Chrome OS being easy to program, I meant familiar. Because it's HTML (albeit a newer version), which pretty much every Web designer (including my mother) knows how to program in, the software companies will only have to hire Web designers, not programmers. Because Web designers (even though they're a type of programmer) are more prevalent than programmers at lower levels (and the fact that HTML is a markup language -- merely marking up documents -- rather than actually coding and compiling picky, error-prone code), they will be able to hire them for less pay and therefore hire more designers. Therefore, if they hire more designers, the job gets done faster. If the job gets done faster, the developer can get cold hard cash out of it.

Combine this with the fact that Chrome OS is free to begin with, and it becomes the perfect marketing tool that developers and other users can use to help lower the cost of Chrome OS devices to way below that of standard PCs, even with similar hardware specs.

SigTerm, it would be best if you actually read my whole post together (along with *ALL* the useful explanatory data) instead of criticizing bits and pieces of it. If you actually took the time to put all the facts together (like that the reason why browsers like IE are free is because they are heavily supported by ads [which those at PCWorld seem to ever so often make the exact same argument I am making regarding], that the money PC manufacturers are making already off of Windows trialware is nothing compares to the money they would be making off of cloud computing trialware [which would require a monthly fee after the trial expires], etc.), then this post and the one that you quoted before would make perfect sense to you.

Edit: And by the way, there is plenty of trialware in the Chrome Web Store already.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn but they could drop down to less than $100

This is a possibility, not a warranty. They could drop to less than $100 (I think it is unlikely, because I've never seen a brand new notebook cheaper than $100). the price could remain unchanged.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn And when I said stuff about the adware for Chrome OS being easy to program, I meant familiar. Because it's HTML

HTML is not a programming language (for the same reason why TeX, XML and lilypond scripts aren't programming languages either). It is markup language. It describes data, not algorithms. Whatever is written in HTML is a web page.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn Because Web designers (even though they're a type of programmer)

And web designer is not a programmer. Designing web page and writing a program requires different skills.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn SigTerm, it would be best if you actually read my whole post together

I actually did read the whole thing, and it would be nice if you finally addressed the main questions I asked - WHO is going to buy chrome and WHY. So far you're only telling me how supposedly great chrome could be in a perfect world, and how it is supposedly good for developers/manufacturers (who aren't consumers), and gave me no reason why this thing would be attractive to actual consumer - somebody other than gadget geek. At the moment I see only hype ("once again, there is going to be a shiny new gadget that is going to make Linux take over"), and the actual device/OS most likely won't live up to it - seen it before.

I wouldn't want as OS that comes with built-in ads and crapware. And I still can't believe that some people actually click on ads.

Originally Posted by SigTerm This is a possibility, not a warranty. They could drop to less than $100 (I think it is unlikely, because I've never seen a brand new notebook cheaper than $100). the price could remain unchanged.

Once again, if you actually put all the facts together instead of merely quoting this one piece of my post and criticizing it, you would find that ads (and adware) could easily make the price of Chrome OS devices drop down fast, since they help the OEMs make money.

Originally Posted by SigTerm HTML is not a programming language (for the same reason why TeX, XML and lilypond scripts aren't programming languages either). It is markup language. It describes data, not algorithms. Whatever is written in HTML is a web page.

And that's the point I am trying to make. All Web apps (even those that run inside Chrome as extensions) *ARE* collections of Web pages (albeit with maybe a trivial amount of JavaScript, but the majority is HTML5 complete with all the GL and 3D graphics)!

Originally Posted by SigTerm And web designer is not a programmer. Designing web page and writing a program requires different skills.

Again, see above. Web pages are pretty much all that goes into Web apps. Especially those that don't require Fla$h.

Originally Posted by SigTerm I actually did read the whole thing, and it would be nice if you finally addressed the main questions I asked - WHO is going to buy chrome and WHY. So far you're only telling me how supposedly great chrome could be in a perfect world, and how it is supposedly good for developers/manufacturers (who aren't consumers), and gave me no reason why this thing would be attractive to actual consumer - somebody other than gadget geek. At the moment I see only hype ("once again, there is going to be a shiny new gadget that is going to make Linux take over"), and the actual device/OS most likely won't live up to it - seen it before.

I'll tell you who: Those newbies that previously weren't attracted to Linux because they haven't heard of it and would rather use the OS that came with their computer. Because Chrome OS will come preinstalled on new computers (like my Cr-48), newbies will automatically use it, with all its compatibility (with Web apps -- again, large groups of Web pages) and ease of use.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn Once again, if you actually put all the facts together instead of merely quoting this one piece of my post and criticizing it,

Even if you actually put the facts together you may still miss a critical factor, forget something and reach incorrect conclusion as a result - because you're human and making errors is human nature. Sumguy has a good point mentioning ad market saturation - his prediction about ad bubble bursting may actually come true (I completely forgot about this possibility). Besides, I doubt that many people will like idea of buying adware-driven platform. If I had to choose between few extra hundreds of bucks or being nagged by advertising, then I'd choose to pay extra hundred of bugs.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn ads (and adware) could easily make the price of Chrome OS devices drop down fast,

"It could" != "It will". There is uncertainty, and if you take murphy's law into account, it will be safer to assume that prices for Chrome OS devices will not go down.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn Because Chrome OS will come preinstalled on new computers (like my Cr-48), newbies will automatically use it, with all its compatibility.

I already imagine scene in computer shop - "I bought a notebook from you, why can't I install *windows game name* on it?".

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn I'll tell you who: Those newbies that previously weren't attracted to Linux because they haven't heard of it and would rather use the OS that came with their computer.

Do you mean people with absolutely ZERO computer experience? I don't think there are many of those left. Normally people are attracted to platform-specific exclusives (software/games), and the reason people aren't why people aren't using Linux is because there is no well-known platform exclusive software aimed toward a non-developer (also because Linux is pain to configure for a "normal user" who has better things to do).
Also you still forgot WHY part. Why are newbies supposed to buy chrome OS? There are already shinier toys from apple, and better-known windows PCs which a sea of software a games available ("I need a computer to play COD"). Why would newbies choose chrome instead of one of those?

If I understood you correctly, your post means that Chrome will be an adware-ridden platform which will be attractive only to newbies with zero computer experience. People that already have computers will have no reason to migrate to Chrome. Is this what you meant to say?

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn And that's the point I am trying to make. All Web apps (even those that run inside Chrome as extensions) *ARE* collections of Web pages (albeit with maybe a trivial amount of JavaScript, but the majority is HTML5 complete with all the GL and 3D graphics)!

BEEEP! Wrong!

Originally Posted by SigTerm Do you mean people with absolutely ZERO computer experience? I don't think there are many of those left. Normally people are attracted to platform-specific exclusives (software/games), and the reason people aren't why people aren't using Linux is because there is no well-known platform exclusive software aimed toward a non-developer (also because Linux is pain to configure for a "normal user" who has better things to do). Also you still forgot WHY part. Why are newbies supposed to buy chrome OS? There are already shinier toys from apple, and better-known windows PCs which a sea of software a games available ("I need a computer to play COD"). Why would newbies choose chrome instead of one of those? If I understood you correctly, your post means that Chrome will be an adware-ridden platform which will be attractive only to newbies with zero computer experience. People that already have computers will have no reason to migrate to Chrome. Is this what you meant to say?

No it is not what I meant to say. First of all, there are popular games that run on Chrome OS, and more easily will follow these. From what I have heard, there even is a Web-based version of WoW (which is the most popular game out there).

And why? One answer: because it's easy to use and cheap. HTML5 will make games *much* easier to create (thanks to WebGL and the built-in HTML5 canvas), because it's a markup language like you said, not a programming language. Games would be so easy to program in HTML compared to C++ or Java that people will easily be able to write games for it, and thus the explosion of popular games comes. And I bet the first developers to create Chrome OS games will be those already developing Android versions of the games. This comes back to the fact that HTML is easy to write, and that GL is so easy to implement with it. And besides, the people who will come to Chrome OS even more so than games are those social networking gurus, since social networking (and maybe YouTube) gurus do nothing but browse the Web. And that includes millions of teenagers, including those I associate with at school.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn Games would be so easy to program in HTML compared to C++ or Java that people will easily be able to write games for it, and thus the explosion of popular games comes.

I dare you to write a Mass Effect clone in HTML 5.

Originally Posted by easuter I dare you to write a Mass Effect clone in HTML 5.

Oh come on. It should be dauntingly easy, especially with the combination of HTML5, WebGL, and JavaScript. However, writing a clone of a game would make me run into software patents, so it isn't a good idea unless the company who develops MassEffect does it.

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn And besides, the people who will come to Chrome OS even more so than games are those social networking gurus, since social networking (and maybe YouTube) gurus do nothing but browse the Web. And that includes millions of teenagers, including those I associate with at school.

What's a "social networking guru"? A person who spends all their time on Facebook? In that case, you still have the same problem that SigTerm is trying to get you to address: why on earth will these Facebook jockeys go out to buy a chrome OS device specifically, when they can *already do all that* on their current computers/smartphones.

And if you're talking about the Youtube "professionals", then you are completely wrong. You need a nice powerful PC to edit/encode video quickly and that's not the kind of thing I'd want to run inside a browser.