Re: Meta Unspools Threads

Johannes wrote:

> "Re-reading this report is fascinating because the vision [of] what
> should be was so much broader than what was implement[ed] — and much
> broader than it appears to be today."


It has always been this way. During my 50+ years of experience with
software development I have almost always discovered that innovator's
initial vision was much broader than what they actually implemented. No
matter how commercially successful a new service may be, it is almost
always a failure when compared against the vision that motivated
its development. Thus, an effective means for discovering opportunities to
innovate is to seek out innovators' pre-implementation descriptions of what
they intended to build and then isolate those things that were not built.
What was forgotten, if remembered, can become a great success on its own.

The growing acceptance of the "Minimal Viable Product (MVP)"
philosophy has, I think, contributed to increasing the distance between
what was intended and what was built. The problem is that the minimal
implementation, if truly viable on its own, often provides only a hint of
what was intended. But, once an MVP achieves success, its implementers
become consumed by the process of maintaining what they built and they
often forget what it is that they intended to build. "Finishing the job"
becomes a task pushed off the future and, as new people join the team,
fewer and fewer team members can distinguish between what it is that they
are working on and what it is that was the original goal. If one's goal is
simply fame, fortune, or employment, that may not be a problem. But, what
is forgotten is lost. Every successful product hides another, perhaps
greater product, that was never built. On the other hand, if the MVP fails,
perhaps due to the fact that it didn't implement enough of the initial
vision, the innovator typically becomes exhausted, or discouraged, and
moves on to other efforts. Once again, something is lost.

No, I'm not arguing against MVP. I'm only trying to point out some of the
dynamics of product development as we know it.

We are fortunate that so much written evidence exists for a vision of the
SocialWeb that goes beyond simple micro-blogging. Hopefully, people will
look hard within those old documents for evidence of challenges that have
yet to be addressed. Hopefully, people will also continue to document an
evolving vision so that it can motivate not only today's developers, but
also guide those who will, in future years, ask: "Is that all there is?"
and then find in old documents an inspiration for new work.

bob wyman


On Sat, Jul 8, 2023 at 8:20 PM Johannes Ernst <johannes.ernst@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Jul 8, 2023, at 15:32, Benjamin Goering <ben@bengo.co> wrote:
>
> I miss that 2005 energy.
>
> 8.2 Use-Case: Real-time Collaboration
>
> ...
>
> [1] https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/XGR-socialweb-20101206/
>
>
> Re-reading this report is fascinating because the vision what should be
> was so much broader than what was implement — and much broader than it
> appears to be today.
>
> Why is that? Don’t those use cases make sense? (I think they do) Have they
> been superseded? (I don’t think so). So …? Count me baffled …
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
>
> Johannes.
>
>
> Johannes Ernst
>
> Fediforum <https://fediforum.org/>
> Dazzle <https://dazzle.town/>
>
>
>
>
>