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You are ignoring the line "But the real future of the laptop computer will remain in the specialized niche markets..." That's the part that's a prediction, which informs the tone of the whole article, which turned out false. The false prediction indeed comes largely from the author's inability to believe that such technological advances could come, within only about 10-15 years, that would completely erase all the downsides he correctly identified (size, cost, etc). I think we're less likely to make such false predictions today, because we've seen such rapid technological advances. This sunk in for me about 10 years ago, before the iphone, talking about digital book readers with a professor, who said to many students who didn't believe digital book readers were in our future: Imagine what you _would_ need in a digital book reader. Smaller and lighter than a paperback? Cheap? Can be read in sunlight? Because all of those things are coming, only in the next few years. Then do you think digital book readers will take off? Lightbulb moment. Even though the author of this OP continues with "Because no matter how inexpensive the machines become, and no matter how sophisticated their software...", I think if he really believed inexpensive, cheap, small, light, sophisticated computers were coming, and soon, he would have had a different prediction. |
I'm not ignoring it, see my other comment[0]. Consider lessening your adherence to excessive literalism, and then reviewing the author's points free of the bias instilled by the unfortunate label of "laptop" that has been slapped on devices that are rarely used on people's laps.
See if you can't bring yourself to understand that the author was right a lot more than he was "wrong".
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9326034