Editing Talk:2481: 1991 and 2021

:::Also, Google never offered great improvement over the ease of search on AltaVista; Google's "improved" search rankings were a result of other user's click-thrus & promotion, notably ''not'' any enhancement of the existing search terms. As a result, Google made it easier to find the sites most commonly accessed through its search gateway, while pushing obscure resources toward the bottom of any search results. After establishing market dominance in web searches, Google then phased out adherence to strict search terms, making it noticeably ''harder'' to find any sites their algorithms do not promote. (They also bought YouTube & then removed a great deal of the independently produced videos which had made the site popular, when "content controls" & the first implementation of their overzealous automated filtering, were brought online.) Google has always been more about promotion than accurate search, & it's reflected in the way they've consistently absorbed new technologies only to shutter them in favor of newer, less functionally-complete projects, which superficially offer more appearance of novelty. Google is to telecommunication today, as General Motors was to transportation in the '00s: An industry giant hindering meaningful innovation by marketing old as new, new as exclusive, & restricted as improved. Rather similar to Apple & MS, actually? (The extent to which ''"free thing that worked fine if you knew how"'' becomes ''"more limited but monetized thing deprecated by another monetized thing until none of them offer what you came for anymore"'', is truly astounding to me. Feels like telecom was better in '05, for anyone who doesn't want to spend hundreds a month in '21.) '''Google deserves credit for innovating search in the same way Apple deserves credit for innovating smartphones: ''They don't.''''' Neither company is great at ''innovating''; they are great at ''marketing'' old as new.  

:::Also, Google never offered great improvement over the ease of search on AltaVista; Google's "improved" search rankings were a result of other user's click-thrus & promotion, notably ''not'' any enhancement of the existing search terms. As a result, Google made it easier to find the sites most commonly accessed through its search gateway, while pushing obscure resources toward the bottom of any search results. After establishing market dominance in web searches, Google then phased out adherence to strict search terms, making it noticeably ''harder'' to find any sites their algorithms do not promote. (They also bought YouTube & then removed a great deal of the independently produced videos which had made the site popular, when "content controls" & the first implementation of their overzealous automated filtering, were brought online.) Google has always been more about promotion than accurate search, & it's reflected in the way they've consistently absorbed new technologies only to shutter them in favor of newer, less functionally-complete projects, which superficially offer more appearance of novelty. Google is to telecommunication today, as General Motors was to transportation in the '00s: An industry giant hindering meaningful innovation by marketing old as new, new as exclusive, & restricted as improved. Rather similar to Apple & MS, actually? (The extent to which ''"free thing that worked fine if you knew how"'' becomes ''"more limited but monetized thing deprecated by another monetized thing until none of them offer what you came for anymore"'', is truly astounding to me. Feels like telecom was better in '05, for anyone who doesn't want to spend hundreds a month in '21.) '''Google deserves credit for innovating search in the same way Apple deserves credit for innovating smartphones: ''They don't.''''' Neither company is great at ''innovating''; they are great at ''marketing'' old as new.  

:::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

:::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

It's not so much the range of cordless phones that is of significant change, but the computing power inside the phone that made the most advancement since 1991. Phones at that time could only make phone calls! Texting didn't become available until 1992 and games and everything else we do on them was later. To me "range" means the connection range which improved a lot, but is still not as signficant as "range of use" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:17, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

It's not so much the range of cordless phones that is of significant change, but the computing power inside the phone that made the most advancement since 1991. Phones at that time could only make phone calls! Texting didn't become available until 1992 and games and everything else we do on them was later. To me "range" means the connection range which improved a lot, but is still not as signficant as "range of use" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:17, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

:Does "cordless phones" refer to cellphones? That's the "wireless" industry. Cordless phones are landline phone handsets that don't have a cord connecting them to the wall, and he's talking about the distance they can be from the base station.  Mentioning these is a joke because so many people have cut the cord entirely, abandoning their landlines in favor of just using cellphones. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 12:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

:Does "cordless phones" refer to cellphones? That's the "wireless" industry. Cordless phones are landline phone handsets that don't have a cord connecting them to the wall, and he's talking about the distance they can be from the base station.  Mentioning these is a joke because so many people have cut the cord entirely, abandoning their landlines in favor of just using cellphones. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 12:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

:That's what I wondered too. I would assume the comic is referring to cordless phones in the sense of landline phone handsets, not cellphones, if just because the coverage range of these phones '''has''' increased, whereas the opposite is true for cellphones. With 2G, you can get coverage up to 35km from the base station, whereas with 4G this is reduced to about 16km. There is effectively more cellphone coverage nowadays because there are more base stations, not because the coverage works at longer range. [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 02:28, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

:That's what I wondered too. I would assume the comic is referring to cordless phones in the sense of landline phone handsets, not cellphones, if just because the coverage range of these phones '''has''' increased, whereas the opposite is true for cellphones. With 2G, you can get coverage up to 35km from the base station, whereas with 4G this is reduced to about 16km. There is effectively more cellphone coverage nowadays because there are more base stations, not because the coverage works at longer range. [[User:Zoid42|Zoid42]] ([[User talk:Zoid42|talk]]) 02:28, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

::I agree, & the assertion that ''cellphones'' have increased in range since '91 would be amusing, if it weren't so incorrect as to represent harmful disinformation. (Ironic, given the topic...) I have edited the explanation to make the situation clearer, but that paragraph is now overly long & contains several run-on sentences: The explanation would read better if split into coherent sections for each of the four changes Cueball described.  

::I agree, & the assertion that ''cellphones'' have increased in range since '91 would be amusing, if it weren't so incorrect as to represent harmful disinformation. (Ironic, given the topic...) I have edited the explanation to make the situation clearer, but that paragraph is now overly long & contains several run-on sentences: The explanation would read better if split into coherent sections for each of the four changes Cueball described.  

:Yeah, describing the difference as being the "range on cordless phones" is way off any way you think about it.  The first cell phones on the market were in the early 70's, though the first ones were big and heavy, like a suitcase, so people would keep them in a car (thus the term "car phones"), and the first handheld ones were in the 80's.  By the time of this, things like this had been on the market for a couple of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC  In fact, 1991 was when the first 2G cell network was introduced, and SMS text messaging started the following year.  Thus though a much larger portion of the population didn't own one at the time, cell phones were already a thing for this past guy's known technology, so the differences were all in the many things they could now do besides simple phone calls, not the range (though I guess a much smaller portion of places are now outside coverage of cell networks, but that's not the important part here.)--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 23:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

:Yeah, describing the difference as being the "range on cordless phones" is way off any way you think about it.  The first cell phones on the market were in the early 70's, though the first ones were big and heavy, like a suitcase, so people would keep them in a car (thus the term "car phones"), and the first handheld ones were in the 80's.  By the time of this, things like this had been on the market for a couple of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC  In fact, 1991 was when the first 2G cell network was introduced, and SMS text messaging started the following year.  Thus though a much larger portion of the population didn't own one at the time, cell phones were already a thing for this past guy's known technology, so the differences were all in the many things they could now do besides simple phone calls, not the range (though I guess a much smaller portion of places are now outside coverage of cell networks, but that's not the important part here.)--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.2|172.70.126.2]] 23:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)