14 Mar
2007
14 Mar
'07
2:35 p.m.
On Mar 14, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
OK, so they're still functional *to you*. But if you take into
account the number of machines on the public network and then look
at the number of machines which are capable of using programs like
talk, I suspect the proportion is absolutely tiny. (which isn't a
Good Thing, IMHO)
I agree on both counts. But I really think that, if you look at
the number of people (not the proportion) who used "talk" in, say,
1992, I suspect it's probably a pretty similar number today. At
least, I do, and pretty much everyone else I know who did in 1992
still does. The massive influx of clueless morons has changed the
Internet considerably, to be sure, but the core of what it was is
still there and still works just fine, IF you choose to make use of it.
The issue's more that in today's
security-paranoid atmosphere
firewalls tend to have everything apart from a few basic services
(like HTTP and SMTP) blocked. So the binaries are still there and
reasonably widespread - you just can't use 'em :(
I generally don't
(and generally won't) use networks that I
don't run, and I'm not a lazy or clueless admin...so I'm used to
seeing things a bit more "open" and functional. (I had exactly the same issues with VCRs the other day
- they're
still useful *to me*, but planet-wide they're dead as a dodo,
superseded by DVD and PVR technology, so I had to bite my tongue
when someone declared them obsolete :-)
Indeed, I know how you feel...the same thing happens to me with a
few things that I use that just happen to be "not new" (which, to the
99% of our society that doesn't think, now means "old").
[and there's a real danger with people confusing
obsolescence with
"no longer any good" - to my mind they're often totally different
things]
Yes, that is infuriating. I emailed a question to the
manufacturer of a piece of test equipment that I have here, and the
response was "that product is obsolete". Well that's interesting...I
use it every day, it works great, and the company hasn't released
anything better since then.
Despite what corporations seem to think, true obsolescence is
determined by the USERS and the CUSTOMERS, not the vendors. There's
a big, big difference between "this is obsolete" and "we'd like to
sell you something different now".
Now, of course there's the matter of unreasonably expecting a
company to spend the resources to support a product long after it has
been discontinued. But again, that's not "that product is obsolete",
that's "we don't make that product anymore and we can't spend the
resources to support it". BIG difference.
Infuriating.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL