e$: Watching the MacRubble Bounce

[Timothy C. May]

At 5:01 PM 8/6/96, Martin Minow wrote:
>Cypherpunks as a spectator sport becomes interesting when a several
>intelligent, articulate, people start a productive rant. Emphasis
>on "productive."  Unfortunately, this rant is rapidly degenerating
>into an emotional bickering between people who are capable of
>accomplishing much more.

Note that I had made no mention of this exchange with VM on the list. I had
not echoed my "Mac is dead" points, and had not bad-mouthed the "Mac
Crypto" thing.

However, when my private e-mail to VM was commented upon, in a not so
thinly disguised form, and when Bob H. made it clear he'd been privy to my
e-mail, I felt justified in setting the record straight on my views, as
expressed in my e-mail to Vinnie.

(It was not, being an e-mail note, meant to be a closely-reasoned and
footnoted summary of Apple's problems, just a statement of why I had no
interest in giving a kind of pep talk to Apple folks.)

As to whether it's appropriate as a thread here on Cypherpunks, hey,
there's a "delete" key on most machines.

Again, I don't consider the Mac to be dead, at least not for several years.
The Amiga lives on, and it never had even a fraction of the peak market
share of the Mac. However, the focus of crypto has clearly moved well away
from the Mac. I noted where the emphasis needs to be, for maximum impact.
Namely, Eudora, Netscape, and other mail and Web programs.

It's a basic fact of life--think about it--that people on this list and
elsewhere are _not_ asking what Gil Amelio's stance on cryptography is.
They don't care, as Gil Amelio, Heidi Roizen, Guy Kawasaki, and all the
rest are simply not in the critical path. What people care about is what
plans Bill Gates, Jim Clarke, and Jim Bidzos have, or their factotums, as
these are the folks who will likely shape the commercial product landscape.

(As to why I don't switch, I have much time and money invested in Macs, and
they still work. As I said in one of my notes to Vinnie, I mainly use
Eudora Pro for mail, Netscape Navigator for browsing, and a handful of
other programs. There would be no compelling gain were I to scrap my Mac
investment and buy a Pentium Pro and Windows NT.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay at got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."