[feketegy]

I think what you are remembering is just nostalgia, people tend to remember the good things and shut out the bad ones.

I still remember how Microsoft, under Gates, acted like a robber baron to the whole tech community. You had a nice product? It was instantly copied by Microsoft, and they pulled the rug under you because they could.

You wanted open standards? It was a war purely because Microsoft wanted it to be. It was either Microsoft's way or the highway.

I consider pre-2008 and pre-iPhone launch to be the peak of the Internet, but it's all downhill from that year onwards.

[Gud]

Yes, agree. Bill Gates was never ”one of us”. He came from extreme privilege and used his advantage to kill off much more innovative technologies. BeOS, anyone?

[TheOtherHobbes]

There's a throwaway quote about the school Gates was attending spending a few thousand dollars a year on a terminal and computer time.

The inflation factor is around 5X, so that's maybe $15k to $20k in modern money.

There were very few schools in the world with a five figure budget for computer experiments for a handful of pupils in the early 1970s.

[anthonypasq]

and?

[mmooss]

To be fair, much of the coding community is highly educated - especially in the top companies, which generally hire from top schools - and therefore likely to be privileged.