With mobile phones, the imbalance between devices designed for consumption and production (e.g. PCs) and devices designed for consumption only (smartphones) has never been so high. Teenage twerking in front of their phone cameras might consider themselves "contents producers", yet they're still floating in the same pool as those who watch them and pay them, a pretty penny at times.Natural_Born_Cynic wrote: ↑January 25th, 2024, 7:22 pmI agree. It's so easy to be a consumer, but hard to be a creator or producer. Every body want their thing now! now! now! but it takes time and dedication to create something amazing.
I know history gave us a few time windows where game consoles were more popular than home computers. Yet, whoever bought themselves an Apple II, a BBC Micro, a Commodore VIC-20 or 64, or a Commodore Amiga or a PC with Windows, at some point ended up learning a programming language (e.g. BASIC, 6502 assembly etc.) and often kickstarting their career as software producers.
A big slice of those people were bedroom programmers, kids whose passion for IT went way beyond making money. It was more about creating something cool, something others could enjoy not just as a functional product, but also as art. Electronic art.
Some of you might be acquainted with "the demoscene", a dense community of bedroom programmers capable of squeezing the audio-visual and computing power of their chosen system to its absolute kernel. Many of these kids did progress on to standard IT careers. Many did not.
They remain a testament that, once upon a time, software could be produced for pure fun or aesthetical fulfilment.
One the world's most famous "demos" of my time. On a Commodore Amiga.