This is a rather strange, rambling essay about the state of the computer industry, historical accidents, and Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux, favoring Linux. Written in 1999, it has not aged well. Stephenson has a fas­ci­na­tion with the command line and a disdain for GUIs.

By using GUIs all the time we have insensibly bought into a premise that few people would have accepted if it were presented to them bluntly: namely, that hard things can be made easy, and com­pli­cat­ed things simple, by …continue.