Linked List: May 14, 2019

Tuesday, 14 May 2019

Paul Ford, writing for Wired, “In Defense of a Difficult Industry”:

The things we loved — the Commodore Amigas and AOL chat rooms, the Pac-Man machines and Tamagotchis, the Lisp machines and RFCs, the Ace paperback copies of Neuromancer in the pockets of our dusty jeans — these very specific things have come together into a postindustrial Voltron that keeps eating the world. We accelerated progress itself, at least the capitalist and dystopian parts. Sometimes I’m proud, although just as often I’m ashamed. I am proudshamed.

Just a lovely piece that I suspect will resonate deeply with many of you. This bit, in particular, put into words something I’ve struggled to capture:

And of course I rarely get to build software anymore.

I would like to. Something about the interior life of a computer remains infinitely interesting to me; it’s not romantic, but it is a romance. You flip a bunch of microscopic switches really fast and culture pours out.

“Not romantic, but it is a romance” — I think that’s what some of us are worried about losing if the Mac grows ever more iOS-like, and it feels a bit like what Brent Simmons wrote recently under the headline “Freedom”.

Google to Show Ads on Homepage of Mobile Site, App ★

Paresh Dave, reporting for Reuters:

Alphabet Inc’s Google will begin featuring ads on the homepage of its mobile website and smartphone app later this year, it said on Tuesday, giving the search engine a huge new supply of ad slots to boost revenue.

Google will also start placing ads with a gallery of up to eight images in search results, potentially increasing ad supply further. The ads will appear on Google pages and apps globally.

It’s interesting to me that they’re saying this is mobile-only, and thus doesn’t include the desktop homepage. But mobile is where the most attention is these days. I’ve long considered Google’s homepage the most valuable advertising space on the internet; it still is, and it’s rather remarkable how restrained they’ve been about using it. One obvious reason: they’ve remained laser-focused on keeping their homepage fast, fast, fast.

Update: Interesting take from a DF reader:

Just curious when the last time you were on a search engine’s home page on mobile? Surely everybody searches in the address bar from the most recently opened window? I had to type google.com into my address bar to even see what it looked like and I use google a dozen times a day. Results being more monetized I get… but mobile landing page? Maybe they’ll get Android users, but not iPhone.

That is true — most iPhone users surely almost never see Google’s pre-results landing page.