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In reply to @emodi
3/8/2024
Nat Emodi@emodi
8/ While today this feels quaint, at the time it was visionary. In 1976, software creation was mostly controlled by manufacturers who buried its cost in hardware pricing. A profit incentive would compel developers to innovate alongside step-changes in hardware, aka Moore's Law.
In reply to @emodi3/8/2024
Nat Emodi@emodi
9/ So, Gates' letter helped shift the paradigm around the value of software developers' work. Before it, software was seen as a cheap output relative to tangible products like semiconductors & microcomputers.