Mainstream

David Heinenmeier Hansson responds to the idea that perhaps Ruby on Rails will never “go mainstream” with this brilliant insight:

To me, mainstream is mostly about reaching people who just don’t care. There are certainly benefits to having such a broad reach that it can include people who don’t care, but the downsides are at least as big.

Bingo! That sums up how I’ve felt from the beginning when people talk about podcasting and videoblogging “going mainstream.” It fits in with how I felt about this guy’s post about how he was going to “jump on the podcasting bandwagon” until he found out that Forrester is reporting “only 1% of households listen”. Frankly, I think the medium should lose all the people that feel that way. (In my experience, Forrester reports are substantially less accurate than asking a Magic 8 Ball, so I’m not endorsing that report only noting that some believe it.) Let the opportunists and gold-rush seekers and the scumbags flake off, and sooner rather than later. Let’s get a backlash and some anti-hype and get rid of the people who are looking to get rich quick and/or find fame without the inconvenience and trouble of actually trying at it. Let the people who care about doing good work that matters to them remain, and we’ll all be just fine.

What we really need is some absurdly negative press and stat! Someone call Steve Friess, he’s always good for some.

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dave

Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.

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