Here Comes Everbody Part 4 (I got mixed up and did the wrong blog. I will post on Shirky 3 tonight)

I was really struck by the idea of the cost of failure. I had never thought about it before but the one thing that really sucks about failing is the fact that you put resources into something that did not work out and you now have no way to get those resources back. Shirky talks at length in chapter ten about the advantages of free failure. Specifically the failure rate sourceforge.net applications is brought up. They state that only the top 25% of applications uploaded to source forge ever get downloaded. It is also pointed out that the majority of meetup.com groups fail. The born skeptic in me has a lot of trouble with concepts like this that are miss leading. The free access nature of many online sites encourage an "ooo its shiny" mentality. The average internet user is willing to sign up for most things on a whim. I would guess most of the sourceforge projects never got far enough along to have a name or concept for the software. Lets use another example to really illustrate the point I am getting at. I set up this blog so that I could complete assignments for DTC 375 at lovely Washington State University. I have yet to get a single comment on my writing and certainly have not become an overnight internet superstar. I have written (most) of my assignments and found an interesting way to reflect on what I have read. Once I am done with 375 I doubt that I will continue this blog. So if I was Shirky I would view this blog as one of the failures that allow for the occasional success. However this blog has fulfilled all the things I started it to do. In my mind that means its a success.

A discussion of Linux also ran through much of section 3. Mostly it pointed out how Linux had a distinct advantage over Windows in that it could innovate and add hundreds of new features to see which ones worked and not have to worry about the overhead of an R&D budget. The average PC user does not want hundreds of new features. Most computer users want to do 4 or 5 things on a computer. Ideally they would like these things to be very easy to do. A more advanced user is willing to sort through more options for more functionality. This is a lot of the reason that Macs are popular at home, Windows computers in the workplace, and Linux and Unix computers for specialized needs and network management. I have made a high quality graph to illustrate what I am getting at:


As the graph shows each computer has its own niche. For this reason you will find that none of the Major OS's get all that concerned about what the other ones do. They each know what they do best and it does not look to change in the next couple of years. This is another great example of why the failure to success ratio for open source software is misleading. Most people only really want one of something. There are a lot of really great web browsers out there for free. Unfortunately for all the others I prefer to use just one at a time. Most of the home users use one or two pieces of software a day. They find what they like and they stick with it. So it stands to figure that there is a lot of serviceable software out there that just does not get used. I guess the hart of what I am getting at here is that popularity and success seem to be directly linked in Shirky's evaluation of items. This seems like a poor measure of things that are more about expression and creativity than functionality and use. Microsoft is not concerned with the prevalence of open source OS's because they know that their customers are there for features that they are familiar. They don't want all the bells and whistles. In any case I feel like I have degraded into ranting which is not a very good response so I will finish with this. If a man in a costume is running through the woods hitting trees with a sword while one person watches, the logical assumption is that the costumed man is crazy. If the same man does the same thing while a million people watch, the logical assumption is that the costumed man is a movie star. As Tom Cruise proves it certainly does not prove that the man is any less crazy. The mob mentality is strong on the internet and vaults some products and people to fame over others for no discernible reason. This does not mean that those not picked by the fickle mob are any less successful in what they set out to accomplish.


One last chart for the road. Sure he's in the middle but that does not seem like such a bad place to be.