Comment by netcan

I agree, but I also think "how people fail at X" is a biased frame, when X is a risky, high value, naivety prone goal.

"Building a platform" is such an X. A high risk/reward goal where lots of failure is expected.

Programming languages, operating systems, hypertext, www. The earliest versions may have been small and made for a specific need... but the generalization attempts came soon and excitable zombocon words came out of mouth.

So sure... targeting your new programming language to a specific use case is a strong starting strategy. But.. it's a programming language. A platform.

The whole information superhighway was a big zombocon in the 90s. That's why the parody resonated in the first place.

I'm not entirely convinced that general platformish ideas cannot succeed. They're just hard and tend to attract the naive because if the massive potential.