| > Don't confuse advances in technology with intentional churn generated by vendors and platforms. The latter is a plague, and it doesn't only cost people money, it costs them productivity. Do you think churn is intentional within a single vendor, e.g. to force upgrades? Could churn be a by-product of competition between vendors, e.g. AWS refactored most of enterprise computing into "low-end" services that steadily improved, but were proprietary and increased lock-in. > The dev tools I'm using won't even work on current computers. I code on a time capsule laptop and depend on the very simplified plugin formats I've chosen (generic interface AU and VST) to remain functional. Is the time capsule laptop for old operating systems or old hardware? COuld the old operating systems work in a virtual machine? > They'd have to break the most fundamental interfaces to kill my stuff (which doesn't make it impossible to do, just very user-hostile) Apple tried to get ride of files (!) entirely, but they are slowly making a comeback on iOS, e.g. now you can insert an attachment within an email, with the right application plugin. Social networks have done their best to replace RSS push notifications with proprietary pubsub. WebDAV, CalDAV, CardDAV are thankfully still supported by a few good apps. > niche markets exist and they're loyal, and (2) they're small, which is what makes them niche. How do you market your services/products within your niche? |
The old laptop is just the most convenient sort of virtual machine. At some point it'll be easier to run a virtual time capsule laptop… however, the physical time capsule laptop is from a time before intense spyware, so there are security issues as well.
As far as niches, Airwindows doesn't market at all. It's only word of mouth, for ten years, with few exceptions (notably, Console2 got reviewed in Tape Op, a trade magazine). This is personal: I loathe getting harassed by marketers so much that I won't even email, much less advertise. I collected a list of the 'Kagi generation' customers who specifically said they wanted to be on a mailing list and hear from me that way. And then I haven't emailed anything to them for months and months :) So, effectively, my business is 'for people who hate marketing so much that they want to do business with someone who will absolutely leave them alone and not bug them'.
By definition this is a niche to starve in, but it's sincere. I really do hate most everything about marketing, so I simply will not do it. Sometimes when I have a notable post or product I leave out the patreon link on purpose :)