This video explains why people hate the IT industry, and it doesn’t even have an IT product or service in it

On the Forgoten Weapons site, Ian McCollum reviews the CZ75 Legend: A Reissue of the Iconic Original Short-Frame CZ75. The CZ75, which originally come out a year before the Apple I, is a widely distributed, well-known semiautomatic pistol, which McCollum previously called technically outstanding. The manufacturer, Česká zbrojovka Uherský Brod, just performed an act of fan service by releasing a near-duplicate of their 1975 version.

Extended availability of the products that customers are used to is not unusual in the firearms business. Colt had a “1991A1” near-reissue of the famous M1911A1 pistol from World War II. A serious hobbyist can get a hold of a surprising fraction of the entire firearms tech tree, newly manufactured. And, possibly as a result, even though the firearms market has what looks like a normal level of customer/vendor disputes, the customer base and the manufacturers are roughly aligned, and customers vote with the industry on issues that concern both.

Now compare that to IT. Can you still get the version of anything that was still good? Say, a desktop OS that works like Mac OS “Snow Leopard” or Windows XP Service Pack 3? Or an Apple iOS update without Liquid Ass? Or pre-“cloud” Adobe Photoshop? No—the necessary new code to support new hardware and fix bugs is bundled with stuff that’s just in there because reasons. Not just business reasons, like sticking ads on everything. Sometimes an adult software exec just wakes up with the determination to make an aesthetic impact, even when it makes the product look like a 1990s raver tried to design a psychedelic window manager theme.

IT CEOs are household names—but famous for being untrustworthy. That’s not ideal for an industry that’s trying to build popular support. AI was supposed to win people over by now – it hasn’t. People are asking librarians how to disable or avoid intrusive AI.

The problem is not just the big picture stuff like trying to get people to accept the impact of (still unpopular) data centers. Failure to keep what works, working is costing the industry in other ways, too. In Apple Dropping AirPort Utility From the App Store With iOS 27, Juli Clover covers how one company is turning a usable WiFi device into e-waste by dropping software support. There’s not even an open source code dump.

Cool trick, but now who’s going to buy an Apple Vision Pro? When a support rugpull could come at any time?

The Apple Vision Pro didn’t flop because it’s overpriced. When the Apple Macintosh came out, it cost about 1559 Big Macs or almost half a Honda Civic. That’s for a computer with no networking, Please insert the disk dialogs instead of a hard drive, and a tiny screen.

The Apple Vision Pro does so much more, and it’s far cheaper, at only 604 Big Macs or about one-seventh of a Civic.

But the Macintosh was sold into a 1980s market with conventional norms, and the Vision Pro was too expensive for most people, even developers, to take a chance on in today’s rugpull economy.

When you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. If the industry wants political support and willingness to try ambitous new platforms, a lot of people will have to make more respectful and long-termist decisions.

Bonus links

Zuckerberg lied about concern for child safety, Meta whistleblower testifies at landmark trial by Dana Kerr. (ICYMI, Mark Ritson covered the marketing industry reaction to a previous case.)

China joins Europe in scrapping Windows for Linux by Steven Vaughan-Nichols. The specialized Chinese version of Windows was already scheduled for retirement in February 2027, but now its end-of-life date has been moved to later in 2026.