Softwearing.
Vol. 7, No. 5
When the music industry got greedy and technology allowed, we broke it with Napster and eventually achieved an unstable balance with Spotify, a tense peace that is in the process of collapsing because they also got greedy. When the movie industry got greedy and technology allowed, we broke it with BitTorrent and eventually achieved an unstable balance with Netflix, a tense peace that is in the process of collapsing because they also got greedy.
Without looking, I’m gonna guess many, many industries have their own version of this, and right now it’s software’s turn.
I believe in hating the game and not necessarily its players, unless the players are also assholes. For example: Adobe. You don’t reverse engineer the core of Adobe’s entire software lineup and hand it out for free unless you really hate Adobe. Fortunately, everybody really hates Adobe, the gold standard in making software bloated and hostile to its own users and somehow still cranking up pricing at every opportunity. I don’t think all developers are greedy fucks, but I do know most of the software I used to use and enjoy has moved to a subscription model and while I understand the need to make your money, I am deeply in touch with the need to keep a little of my own. I miss buying a thing, owning it, and that being more or less the end of the transaction. So it goes.
Software got greedy and now technology is allowing us to break it. I mentioned Glaze somewhere in the mess of Vol. 6, but my thoughts were half-baked at the time. I’m still using it and I still really like it. It’s not using AI to help or improve code; you don’t even see the code. (Probably there is a way to look at and edit code in there? Maybe? I’ve never had cause to look.) It’s just prompt and then the app exists and you prompt and it changes. At no point do I ever even feel tempted to say I made anything. So far I’ve had it build three apps: An updated version of the markdown editor I’ve used several LLMs to build me over and over with mixed results (though very good results here); a desktop radio app that lets me mix streams, playlists and podcasts in a goofy retro interface; and a two-screen app for revealing maps during Dungeons & Dragons games.
Are these apps well built? How the fuck would I know?
Do these apps work the way I want them to? Yep. I’m writing a new novel in the markdown editor. I’m listening to the radio app while typing this. I use the D&D app on Wednesday nights. Instead of blocking off a weekend for updates and bug fixes, if I decide during a D&D game that I need a measurement tool inside my app, I can take three minutes to tell Glaze to add it right there while we’re playing. (That happened!)
I pay $12/month for credits and “Creator Hub” (not actually useful), and while I’m not in love with paying for another subscription, the D&D app alone saved me half that amount on a subscription for the app I used to use — a really great app with about a zillion features I did not need, want or use, but was paying for anyway — and I’ve identified when all my annual subs renew and have set timelines to replace most of that software with a light-weight version that does exactly what I want from Glaze. In the end, I figure the single Glaze sub will be four or five times cheaper than what I’m currently paying. Not sure how you convince me that isn’t worth it, at least not without convincing me all of this will ultimately end with our doom, and I already kinda sorta believe that anyway.
The Glaze ecosystem is funny: the best apps have triple-digit downloads if they are lucky (the highest I’ve seen is in the 900s). My three apps have a total of 10 installs, and three of those are me. (Glaze, understanding paying customers have egos, displays this in their store as “<100”.) I have downloaded other people’s apps to play with, but didn’t keep any because why would I? I’m not on Glaze for your dumb fucking app, I’m on there for my dumb fucking app (which I write release notes for because I’m an idiot). If you do see an app from someone else that you’re a little intrigued by, you don’t have to install it — you can “remix” it, telling Glaze to bend it to your will.
That feels like a very real possible future for software. At least until AI gets greedy (lol) and we break it.
Housekeeping: No more AI talk until Vol. 8. I’m sick of it. Remember when we used to talk about art and TV and stuff? That was cool. / ✌️
Et cela vaut! 100,000! et tout le monde le sait. / Hermann Paul
Confusions.
🧠 Wikipedia’s pyrrhic victory. ❝In short, the encyclopedia is being destroyed by its biggest beneficiaries, like a golden goose slaughtered for slop-pâté. It’s a cruelly ironic fate for a project that began as a failed startup’s castoff. Had anyone predicted Wikipedia’s true value during its formative phase, it would never have survived.❞ / 📺 Red Dwarf and rejecting sci-fi conventions. / 🔁 It me! (a guy who watches the same things over and over and over) / 🎰 Everything is wrestling gambling. / 🐟 I no longer have to make life decisions thanks to my infinite tins of fish. ❝An enterprising man named Nicolas Appert sealed cooked fish into glass jars and boiled them, eventually winning 12,000 francs and the kudos of Napoleon Bonaparte. Later, in Britain, the merchant Peter Durand swapped Appert’s jars for tin-plated cans. Fast-forward 200 years and now we’re all swimming happily in a $15 billion global market of shelf-stable seafoods that can last for years and years.❞
Extensions.
📐 Antique Fonts. / 🛠️ InBrowser.app, browser-based tools. / 🔠 Big Words. / 💻 Prefab is one of those minor, life-changing work apps that will save you about six years of time over the rest of your life in four-minute increments. / 📰 Wallhop, another paywall killer. / 📍 Local Wikipedia. / 🏄 Internet Cul-de-sac. / 🍿 BingeBrowse turns your streaming into an old-school video store. Considering how to make this my default TV interface. / 🎧 Sprout, a new motherboard for your old iPod. / Spider-Man background music. / RoamDial is very cool. / 🎨 Semantic Art Search. / 🚂 Railpass.
Explorations.
🎥 Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald. / 🍿 Ready Or Not: Here I Come. / 🍿 “The Cornetto Trilogy.” Finally introduced my youngest to the only film trilogy I care about. / 📚 See You Around by Lex Paleaux.