About 15 years ago I read an article in Dr. Dobbs or IEEE or some such. It was about how MS had sold people on this idea of infinite backwards compatibility, and how it was a false feature, and was only an excuse for not fixing defects, or investing in the future of the operating system.
The truth is, there are constant changes and updates in the Windows operating system, and the article was biased. MS never promised anyone that. But the idea was there, and it has stuck in the minds of many software users.
Software is a hybrid subscription service whether it is sold that way or not. Sure there are greedy suits who have picked up on the idea, and the realization that do to the speed of technological advance, software is service like. The primary difference being, that if you have a machine that can run the original software that you purchased, then you can continue to use it, unlike subscriptions where they actively cut you off if you stop paying.
The primary difference in the “essential truth” is in how fast the software and hardware change. If you recorded on a Sel-Sync in the early 60s, you didn’t expect to be remixing it on a MM1200 in the late 70s.
But now, it’s just a few years between changes. The hardware doesn’t last. Computers break down. The software of the time was just the tape. You could ruin a head by using the wrong tape repeatedly, but just you didn’t risk having old recordings not work because you used a new technique. There was a greater degree of permanence. Now you can install new software, that makes the old software not work any more.
Then there is the perception of what that software is. You didn’t use to buy an instrument and then somehow have that instrument not work with the new recording device. Instruments worked as long as you maintained them. A violin doesn’t stop working because you record it with a a new microphone.
Through this journey from the 90s to now, we are only just starting to learn the ramifications of what it means to purchase software, or to make software based business deals. There was a time when every software engineer had a healthy fear of code that was not developed in house. The business mindset was to use as much as possible that was already coded. Both philosophies have their benefits, and the off-the-shelf mindset won out for a time. But since software companies have died because of bad deals, bad contracts. The shortsighted feature grab that doesn’t come with full rights to the source code was commonplace for a long time. But thankfully those days seem to be behind us now.
We seem to have finally reached a time when features are built in house, or are built with code that the company has full rights to maintain. It’s the best of both philosophies, with the irksome side effect that customers are now feeling the final pangs of previous mistakes. Features are being dropped.
Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. This is a step in the right direction for the consumer, and the business, but there is still a battle being waged. How do you maintain control of a platform so that it does not degrade into chaos, while still having it be open enough, and trusted enough that everyone will adopt it? How do you interoperate without giving up market advantage?
As consumers and engineers we want stability, we don’t want to have to learn a new way of doing the same thing over and over, it’s a waste of time we could be spending doing new things, being creative. Once there is a way, we don’t want it to change, but we also want new features, and sometimes those new features come at the cost of the realization that the way we use to do it was inferior. We could insist on that stability, but the more stability we get, the more likely the whole thing will be outdone to the point that the systems and tools we know are outdated, and we have to start all over again anyway.
This “essential truth” is thrilling to a business person. They get tingles just thinking about surfing the market waves, finding the pocket, getting barreled and riding out to join the next wave. But to the creative, the musician, the tinkerer, the engineer, or the scientist, this is angering and even depressing. If they are forced to make too many changes, they will leave for a new product, especially when those other products have new features unavailable to them otherwise.
Why else would the market be so completely over-saturated with Digital Audio Workstations?