This kind of thing only works when users looking for "ebooks" are channeled through Amazon. Paid placement on Google may help them in that regard. What happens when users learn they can download ebooks elsewhere?

It's nonsensical to pay a fee for distribution when the distribution channel is the internet.

Project Gutenberg's and Archive.org' ebooks are better than this e-paper or super hi-res screen nonsense. Reading books on these devices is dog slow and awakward. It is just text. It should be searchable using Boyer-Moore algorithm. Fast. searchable ebooks.

Just view the source of the webpage. Links to the .mov file are there for Safari, iPhone, iPad and Windows. Search for "_350".

If you view source of the webpage, you will see links for the iPad and iPhone as well. Search for "_350".

Alas, getting actual links to video is not always so easy.

Thank you Adobe, Brightcove and others for making video such a PITA.

But then you have a corporation like Google adopting "Don't be evil" as its value statement.

It's obvious that software nerds do have some concept of "evil" as it applies to software, and they like to label things as "evil" or not.

Nerds believe the potential for "evil" exists through software. Even if they are not fanatics.

Yes. I too am dismayed.

There used to be something called MIME. There used to be separate specialised applications for different tasks.

Guess what? There still are.

Browsers have long had the ability to decode image formats. That much we expect from the browser.

But audio? Video? "Web sockets"?

There are better applications to handle these formats and tasks than a web browser.

When I want to listen to audio, I use an application that is designed for that.

When I want to watch video, I use an application that is designed for that.

When I want to open sockets for peer-to-peer communication, I use an application that is designed for that.

Everyone knows browsers suck for downloading. So why are we using them to download content (whether to a file or to a buffered cache)?

Download the content using a program that is designed for downloading.

View/play the content with applications designed for those tasks.

Anyone who would criticise this approach is criticising the "UNIX way". Do one thing well. But watch how people will criticise it.

Yes, it is insanity.

These browsers are always going to have performance issues. If you want the best audio, video, peer-to-peer, etc., use applications that were designed for those purposes. As simple as possible. Simple applications. That is how you achieve performance, reliability and security.

"Do-everything" browsers and Javascript are not not worth the risks they present.

Web sockets are not for P2P. They're just raw TCP sockets to servers with an initial HTTP-like handshake.

Personally, I can fully understand your points, and I actually take exactly that approach (using youtube-dl + mplayer for Youtube, extracting the streaming URLs from online radios and plugging them in MPD, etc).

But, as a Linux user, I'm all too accustomed to be left out from many applications because this platform isn't profitable enough to develop to.

Browser applications break with the monoculture of Windows (or, on mobile, iOS+Android) because they're portable and open by default. And I think that has some value.

The problem with such an approach is that it makes computers hard to use - hard enough that 99% will not want to use it.

Yet people criticised the VAX. I guess every computer has its flaws (nothing is perfect!), but was the criticism of the VAX justified? (Assuming uptime and reliability means anything, and compared to what followed it. Windows NT? C'mon.)

It is just one more bit of evidence that tells me that many of the supposed "experts" on matters of computing are anything but. There's FUD and then there's just people who just have no idea what they're saying. (Of course the CEO of DEC got caught making the dumbest comment ever. No one is immune.) Maybe we should just focus on results and not what people say?

VMS is different from UNIX.

VMS is like a mini-mainframe. You aren't supposed to play with it, you get given specific permissions by some operator, you do as you are told, you don't mess around. And you do things the VMS way. If you want to know the VMS way there are 100ft of grey manuals on the shelf telling you.

Unix has a play with and enjoy the jokes philosophy.

In my experience VMS people hate Unix more than Unix people hate VMS

I remember having to shift those manuals to a skip when we replaced the VAXCluster with SQL 6.5 (bad bad bad decision othe than for electricity usage!)...

I didn't remember much hate between the UNIX/VAX people in my org as they were pooled together. I think everyone agreed that VAX/VMS was superior though when it came to getting stuff done and leaving it done.