The world doesn't revolve around you. What's the point of your post?

The claim of the OP is that "mobile changes everything". The OP frequently compares with PCs.

My point is that mobile does not change everything, and in particular does not replace PCs.

I illustrated with examples I know, my own usage. E.g., I am a very heavy user of computing -- no one with only 24 hours a day can expect to be a heavier user. Still, personally I have no use for mobile devices at all. None. Zip, zilch, zero. For me personally, mobile changes nothing. Can't use it. Don't want it. No sale.

"Mobile changes everything"? Not for me!

Mobile doesn't replace food, clothing, shelter, cars, medical care -- or PCs.

More generally, for a user interface, there are a lot of advantages to just highly universal, device independent HTTP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. As a user interface, apps are a really big step down -- not universal, device dependent, can't save, access, reuse the data, get more security problems, etc.

Of course it's not about me -- I just used my examples and thinking.

You are welcome to give up your PC if you want -- I'm keeping my PC, and at least for now don't want a smartphone.

I intend to buy at least two new PCs -- I don't want a smartphone around even for free.

In particular, while A16Z is all excited about mobile changes everything, for my own usage I care less than 0.00 about anything mobile. For my business, my mobile strategy is just to have really simple Web pages.

The A16Z data presentation is from okay up to quite nice, but their conclusions from their data are junk.

A16Z is just looking for attention, and are passing out nonsense.

Maybe with such attention they hope to get deal flow. So, maybe the hint is: "Entrepreneurs, send us your mobile business plans -- we're eager to write early stage equity funding checks for such." Likely nonsense: No doubt among what else hasn't changed are VCs' criteria for writing early stage checks -- traction significant and growing rapidly for a market and a product for that market that might quickly be worth $1 billion and where the entrepreneurs are desperate for cash and to sign a bad business deal.

Further, really want people thinking such nonsense on your BoD?

I want to debunk their nonsense.

Just why they pass out such nonsense I don't know, but a guess is that they believe that it will help them with their LPs. We're talking some really gullible LPs.

> My point is that mobile does not change everything, and in particular does not replace PCs.

The point is, for a vast majority of users, it does replace PC's for them. They were never writing software or doing photoshop. They were surfing the web, buying stuff, and playing solitaire. Those people can do that, and so much more, on their mobile phones.

> Still, personally I have no use for mobile devices at all.

You are in the minority and you should just accept that.

But you're one example in a sea of mobile users. The presentation was using real data and citing sources.

But the data and sources, as good as they were, and interesting, even astounding, didn't rationally support their claim that "Mobile changes everything".

Moreover, their frequent comparisons with PCs flop: So far mobile just will not do much to replace PCs. The world has a lot of tacos, too, and they won't replace PCs either.

Broadly mobile is mostly just a new product (collection of new products, new product category), does replace PCs for some relatively light work formerly done on PCs, has some new functionality and uses from being mobile, having GPS and a camera, etc., but, still, just does not yet replace PCs, and the data and sources do not so establish.

For any good theory, need some examples, and I offered mine.

Basically, for any really heavy PC user, mobile is not a replacement.

But mobile is changing everything. I don't have a fixed phone in my house, I use my mobile phone. I don't use one of the two expensive DSLRs in my house, I use my phone. In two months recently in the US, I never hailed a cab, but used an app to hail and track a car. I read books on my phone, I edit photos on my phone, I track site analytics and app sales on my phone, I play games on my phone, I navigate using maps on my phone, I record notes on my phone.

I switched from a desktop to a laptop three machines and 10+ years ago. Never considered buying a desktop since. Modern mobile devices (Surface-style tablet/laptop hybrids) are very capable these days and not far away from the MBP I use. Once phone-form-factor devices are more powerful and we have virtual displays and a keyboard replacement, the needle will shift further. That level of capability will cover almost everyone who uses a computer for work.

Don't get me wrong, I don't work on my phone. I feel cramped with less than three monitors. I like to spread out. But I also like to scrawl notes pencil on paper, and that doesn't mean that computers haven't taken over the offices of decades past.

And there's no denying that the mobile form factor - a computer that you carry around with you easily - is dominating and will go further. Someone who doesn't have a use one will be a blip.

Maybe all those are possible mobile; but just not very good. Edit a photo? For real? With one finger? Books one paragraph at a time? That's gotta be slow. Games - not immersive 3d ones, maybe dumb puzzle games or side-scrollers with a tiny part of the screen visible at one time. And navigation is very hard on a phone - turn-by-turn is the norm, which totally blows any global awareness and turns you into a cog. I can't see enough map on a phone to even begin to plan a route.

I'm heavily biased - I can't exist without 2 large screens, mouse and keyboard for what I use a computer for. But from my point of view every attempt to use a mobile device ends in frustration and despair - they are so slow, such a tiny bandwidth for interaction, information comes in droplets. I'm unwilling to dumb myself down to their level.

> Edit a photo? For real? With one finger? Do you use 2 mice to edit your photos? Most computer graphics people I know edit photos with a pen (also a singular digit). The main thing I miss when editing photos on my laptop is the ability to reach out and touch it, and normally with 1, 2 or more fingers.

The main problem is the damn iPad and its 'fat finger' syndrome, but I have a pen based 8 inch tablet that I wish had more capable photo editing software, because it turns editing photos into a dream (I am not a professional, and could never get the hang of digitizing pads, I like to see what I am editing directly under the pen)

This isn't about productive work for a narrow grouping of people but about life. For 99% of people (the huge growth in mobile the slides talked about), editing a photo is applying filters and tweaking some sliders. It's not Aperture and Lightroom or Photoshop.

My Garmin has about the same screen size as my phone. I've used both successfully for navigation many, many times.

Took a DSLR on a recent two-month trip and outside of Yellowstone (zoom lens...), I barely touched it. My phone takes excellent photos, takes slo-mo videos, auto-stitches panoramic photos instantly, has timelapse options, HDR apps. And it has more storage, built-in sharing/social options and it's far, far smaller.

> In two months recently in the US, I never hailed a cab, but used an app to hail and track a car.

I haven't hailed a cab in years -- rarely need a cab. If I needed a cab a lot, sure, maybe I'd get a cell phone. If some Uber app was a lot better, still, and I wanted to use Uber, then I'd get a smartphone. I live out in the 'burbs -- deer, ground hogs, etc. in the back yard -- where the cab service sucks.

> I track site analytics and app sales on my phone

The times I try to read graphs of data, usually I copy the file of the image to disk, read it with Microsoft's Picture and FAX Viewer, and zoom in a lot: Commonly people who draw graphs like the visual aspect but come close to just ignoring the axes and commonly have the text way, way, way too small -- I can't read the text at all without about 3X zoom. It'd be worse on a smaller screen.

So, you are using a smartphone to read data and less to write it. To draw a graph, I use Excel and scream bloody murder until I get out my notes on what the heck hidden magic ways to left/right single/double click to get the standard things done, e.g., get the font sizes up about 4X, make as much as possible black and bold, etc. It turns out that, then, I usually, for the people I tend to show graphs to, print the graphs on paper.

For photos, it turns out that I bought for about $2 a digital camera -- cute little thing, sold shrink wrapped on a card. Apparently it has the camera guts of a smartphone. It also has a USB socket. And, yes, Microsoft PhotoDraw will read an image from a USB port. So, I can take and print some images.

But, soon, I saw that my sack of Nikon camera equipment, especially with my Honeywell smart flash, takes much better pictures. To develop the pictures, I just take the film to Sam's Club or Wal-Mart. Sadly their scanning resolution is much lower than my pictures deserve, but otherwise I get good pictures. Sure, someday I will cough up $10,000 for a new bag of Nikon equipment but with CCDs instead of film. I'll get a copy of PhotoShop, a color printer, etc.

No joke, smartphone cameras (with some interesting principles of optics on the advantages of such a small lens, short focal length, and number of pixels per inch in the detector) are no doubt now taking each year, maybe each month, more photos than were taken in all the history of film cameras. But the quality is like old snapshots.

E-mail on a smartphone? I won't do it: To me e-mail is important; I have some good ways to handle it; and those ways make good use of my PC and its software and won't carry over to a smartphone. I won't put my e-mail in a smartphone silo but want to keep it on the same computer as all my other important data -- data to/from e-mail needs a big fraction of my collection of all my data.

So, right, for some of the easier, read-only work on a PC can move to a smartphone. And a smartphone has some new hardware that permits some new uses.

But, replace a PC? Not for any very serious PC user. But the A16Z piece kept comparing with PCs -- and that's about as relevant as comparing with lawn mowers.

It was just such a really good story -- a PC is a computer, a smartphone is a computer, a lot more smartphones are being sold than PCs, some relatively light work done on PCs can be done on smartphones, a smartphone can also be used for some new work that needs the new hardware, ergo, now the newsies and A16Z have a story -- smartphones are changing everything, including PCs. Nonsense. It's just a tricky, deceptive story.

And that's a lot of what the OP had to say: A lot of that data was interesting, but, net, smartphones are no more replacing PCs than, say, an electric bicycle can replace a car.

A lot of tacos are being sold, more than PCs, but that doesn't mean that tacos are replacing PCs.

My simplest point: Mobile is not replacing PCs. Some people don't like me to say this, but it's just dirt simple that I'm correct. That you like the big monitors on your PC is part of the best evidence -- until there are some suitably good special glasses those big monitors will remain a big reason mobile devices won't replace PCs. Then there's the mouse, the keyboard, the printers, the old software -- dirt simple argument.

Just stop being autistic here. You're arguing a straw man. Nobody is saying that no PC's will be sold any more, or that all work on PC's can or will be replaced by mobile applications. The fact is (and all numbers prove so, from the sales numbers of phones and PC's, to the surveys and tracking data on use of mobile and desktop software) that many users can do on phones what they used to need a PC for (surfing, email, facebook) and that they have so little use for a PC that they, when facing the choice between phone and PC for cost reasons, choose the phone. I'm not sure how you're even arguing this is not true, a blind man can see it - you're arguing the equivalent of creationism.

Likewise, you boast that you are such a heavy PC user, which is exactly what puts you 3 or 4 standard deviations away from the modal user. So your diatribe on your own usage habits is statistically insignificant, and so a worthless sample.

I uderstand that phones and tablets have replaced typical desktop usage for the most casual user section of the population but I also find it quite sad.

These people (if studies and surveys are to be believed) basically 'surf' the internet through 4 or 5 particular apps on their phones and they form the filter bubble that is their experience of the internet entirely.

They don't even use browsers for the most part. Maybe thes epeople never used a desktop to 'surf' the internet and discover new things in the first place, but now they never will.

>Actually some years ago a friend gave me a cell phone. Once I turned it on, and some complicated dialog came up about my reading some contract and sending money. I turned the thing off and haven't turned it back on since.

You and RMS will get along well I suspect.

If you'd written it on a smartphone, it might've been more succinct! ;)

=== Overview

"Computers" -- an astoundingly popular collection of new products? Yes.

"Changes everything"? No.

Computer are new and popular? Yes, and at one time in the US so were tacos.

New and popular is not nearly the same as changing everything.

=== Use a Computer? Could I use a computer to buy write a novel? Yes.

Would I? Very definitely, no!

Why not?

(1) If the media is a floppy disk instead of a piece of paper, no thanks.

Why? Because with a piece of paper and a sheet of carbon copy, I get to keep a copy of the relevant pages I type. And I very much want to keep that data for the future.

(2) Want to keep those copies of pages on a computing device? Not a chance.

Why? Because for such data, I want my typewriter with its hardware and paper. I want the special correction ribbons, my editor his many years of experience, and my means of finding things in the file cabinet.

My typewriter also gives me a good keyboard, a good (and built in) printer, a mechanical freedom from power (I don't want to keep close to power outlets -- in fact, my writing desk is not even close to any outlets), ability for anyone with a pair of eyes to read/write on my work without needing a whole computer of their own, backup via Xerox and offsite backup via fax, etc.

Do I want to backup to tape? Not a chance. I backup to local acid free archival quality paper.

Why? Because for tape backup, money, a new hardware, power concerns, spooks, and technicians could get involved.

=== Business

My business is a writing books. I'm developing them on my typewriter, and each page goes live as soon as I finish the page.

PC readers of my books? Sure: My pages will look and work exactly the same on any pair of eyes, even with a pair glasses hundreds of years old.

=== New Business for Microsoft et al.

It sounds like Microsoft likes computers because for millions of businesses MS-DOS will run their first computer and it's new and popular.

Okay, then, Microsoft, here's another business you should like -- coffee. Also, of course, just from the OP, paperclips. No way should we forget -- salt. Okay, of course -- sugar. Sure, one more -- toilet paper. Naw, got to have one more, plastic knives, forks, spoons, and drinking cups. Not to forget -- sell them service level agreements for their computers. Maybe even backup word processing software for their computers!

Especially for Microsoft, got to have one more -- sure, Kool Aid.

=== Summary

A means to write is the most important tool in my life. Currently my typewriter is my means of writing.

A computer most definitely does not replace my typewriter. Actually, at present I have no use for a computer, a radio, or a television and, so, have none.

Actually some years ago a friend gave me a computer. Once I turned it on, and some complicated dialog came up about my reading some End User License Agreement and sending my first born child to someone named Steve. I turned the thing off and haven't turned it back on since.

Or, my typewriter has a network effect: It has made all my writing and means of entering, storing, processing, communicating, and viewing data, universal to any literate sighted person. A computer cannot be that one place, and, due to the network effect, I don't want to split off some of my data into a immobile silo, tethered to a power socket and only able to communicate with people who have also sent their first born to Steve (if they sent their first born to Bill instead - no deal).

=== Denouement

This post was written, spell checked, etc. with my favorite mechanical typewriter, using my favorite spell checker (The OED, hardback) on my writing desk, and no way would I have wanted to have done this post on a computer and then try to figure out how to plug it into the power and the phone socket.

Instead the page went live on the notice board of my local library where people from all walks of life can easily view it.

Good comparison.

But I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation just as daisy wheel printers were becoming popular. Then there was no doubt: I typed my dissertation into a text editor on a computer (I was from my non-academic work already really good with those two tools) and printed it out on a daisy wheel printer.

That approach was much better than a typewriter because of the accuracy (I have horrible aptitude as a typist and desperately need the power of a text editor and computer to make corrections), the speed (could get a new copy at 30 characters per second), and could make revisions quickly and easily, and I made a lot of revisions before I handed in a copy. Then for a prof I had to add a few words of clarification to a paragraph -- did that, printed the whole thing again, and returned the result to him on paper in 24 hours. Yes, the only place I could do that word processing was at my office, but that was still better than my typewriter at home.

More generally, one of the most important uses of computers has been for document preparation, and that is still a big need, if only for a post at HN where I'd much rather have my computer than a smartphone.

I might have become a tenured prof, but the main bottleneck was just getting my academic mathematical word whacking done. Net, I couldn't do it. Flatly. No way.

The word processing group of the university I was in couldn't do it. I couldn't do it with just a typewriter. Halt. Full stop.

Doing the academic research? Fun and easy. Writing up the math? The same. Getting the typing done? Just impossible.

Now I can do mathematical academic word processing with my good set up on my PC of D. Knuth's TeX, etc. For the last paper I published, after I gave up on being a prof, I used TeX -- it worked great.

But, sure, a smartphone wouldn't help with TeX. TeX on a smartphone? F'get about it.

Net, a PC is a great tool, for many things, e.g., nearly all of document preparation, much better than a typewriter, even though a typewriter has some advantages as you point out. For nearly all of document preparation, the extra cost, complexity, etc. of a PC are very much worth it. Really, net, PCs replaced typewriters.

So far I have no use for a smartphone. One reason is that I stay at my PC working on my startup. My phone is right here, with its signal running through my PC's FAX modem card so that I can use my text editor to find and dial phone numbers -- also save phone numbers.

In time a mobile device may replace a PC. But need:

(1) A good replacement for a keyboard. Maybe voice or brain waves would work if can reduce the detailed complexity of much of current keyboard input, e.g., HTML and CSS markup.

(2) A good replacement for a mouse, and a finger on a screen is not good enough.

(3) A way to view output much better than a small screen. Sure, may be able to use some special glasses. Sure, if 3D is to play a big role, then special glasses may be the way.

(4) Appropriate versions of, or replacements for, a lot of crucial PC software, e.g., my favorite text editor, Knuth's TeX, PDF writers, lots of old programming languages, libraries, source code, etc. I have a lot of such I very much do not want to be without.

(5) Backup, say, to the cloud, that can trust enough to replace tape, writable DVDs, external USB hard drives, etc. Lawyers are a biggie threat.

(6) Have enough trust in the Internet finally to depend on it nearly totally.

(7) Solid solutions for the many, severe security threats of mobile devices.

(8) A way to get data to replace getting data just by saving Web pages. E.g., when I shop for or buy things on the Internet, I want to keep the associated Web pages.

Sure, maybe (1)-(8) will come. E.g., for storage, maybe some of nanowires, what HP is doing, etc. will mean that all my storage can be in little cubes, about the size of a sugar cube, I can write and store in my side desk drawer, also on the Internet in case of fire. Also stick under the insulation on the floor of the attic where no way can lawyers find it.

But, just for now, biggies are some comparatively simple things -- keyboard, mouse, screen, laser printer, DVD R/W, and a few more. E.g., I still use my laser printer for some crucial things. Indeed, I still keep my daisy wheel printer as the best way to address envelopes for USPS -- they are still in business, not yet totally replaced by the Internet.

Here's another thought: PCs are here and so far there is nothing to replace them.

But as it slowly becomes possible to replace PCs, they will be replaced not by mobile devices but slowly by a sequence of incrementally better PCs, some of which might have form factor and power requirements to permit being mobile.

Over time, maybe it will be possible to replace PCs. Sure, Windows XP replaced Windows 3.1 and PC/DOS -- that was incremental as I believe the replacement for a PC will be.

In strong contrast, smartphones and other mobile devices won't replace PCs, at least not for a while.

Look, A16Z, there are some uses for smartphones: Teenage girls are genetically compelled to gossip, 24 x 7 if they can, so need at least cell phones. Nearly everyone who works from a panel truck wants at least a cell phone. Cell phones are a good replacement for the radios that taxicabs used to use, and now smartphone are crucial to Uber, etc.

But for the billions of smartphone users, the reason was simpler: It was much cheaper just to put up cell towers than to lay copper cable. Ergo, smartphones instead of land lines. But don't expect that several billion people in mud huts will be using their smartphones to order four feet wide TVs from Amazon.

With some irony, as the Internet improves, the need to move around will lessen and, then, so will the desirability of being mobile.

Or, having two locations, one at home, and one more at an office, and driving between the two, is a bummer -- waste time, money, and energy. Being mobile is often a bummer.

I come at the mobile 'changes everything' just in my usage of computers and mobile devices.

I still use my laptop as a creation device, mainly for your point 1 above, I do like a good keyboard and mouse, but I do like touch interactions for certain things, and I think my next 'main' computer will have a touch screen.

I use my tablets as consumption devices mainly. I love reading, and I find the iPad has a great form factor for reading certain types of books - tech books, graphic novels etc.. But I also have an 8" tablet with pen, which I love, because the one thing I still love to do by hand is brain storm, mind map and just plain sketch out ideas. It's the main thing I miss being able to do on my main PC. And I love the mobility and battery life of tablets for when I am consuming around the house or in the garden.

My smart phone is mainly just a phone, but it is also my tap of flowing information. Be it a map when I am in a new city, or a quick lookup on wikipedia to settle a debate over beers, I find it invaluable for its niche.

So maybe I don't take the view you do that they have to replace the PC, I just find my life is much enriched when I use all of them together, each for what it is best at - for example, if I am working through a coding book I find it much easier to have the book open in the iPad next to the keyboard, than having the pdf open on the second monitor. A quick tap of the tablet and the page turns while I still have my terminal focussed and able to be typed into.

And as for the billions of people coming online with cheap smart phones - I don't expect them to be shopping Amazon - but I am working on, and I hope others will be too, a way for them to get information they need, when and where they need it, to improve their lives. It could be something as simple as an African farmer checking his crops and seeing weird spots on them, taking a photo and sending to a forum of farmers, and maybe within minutes receiving info on what he should do next to protect his crop.

Not everyone has the option (or desire maybe) to be tied to their home and never have to leave. Being mobile should be a choice, then it may not be quite the bummer you think it is.

We essentially agree. But in places you are misinterpreting my position.

I have nothing against smartphones and will get one when I have a good use for it -- which so far I do not.

> So maybe I don't take the view you do that they have to replace the PC

I don't think that smartphones have to replace PCs; and I believe that for now they can't replace PCs for all but a small fraction of heavy PC users.

My beef with the OP was the frequent comparisons with PCs, thus, suggesting that smartphones are about to replace PCs: There were a lot of nice graphs and nice data, but those didn't establish the suggestion of replacement.

Beyond the hints of replacement was the claim "mobile changes everything". Well, it won't change PCs for a long time. Proof: Big screens, mice, good, full keyboards, printers, CD/DVD R/W devices, old software. QED. Dirt simple.

I do differ with you on reading computer documentation. I really, really want that documentation on the same computer I am using to write the software: For my software project, I have about 6000 Web pages, PDF files, etc. of documentation, in four collections, Windows, SQL Server and ADO.NET, Visual Basic .NET, and TCP/IP and ASP.NET.

In each collection I have a simple flat ASCII file with, for each such document in that collection, the title of the document, an abstract of the document, often some notes of my own, often relevant short code samples from the document, the original URL of the document (except for the relatively few documents I wrote myself), and the file name, date, size, etc. of the document on my disk. My favorite editor is terrific for searching, reading, revising those four files. Terrific.

Then, in my code, when I make important use of such a document, I include in the file of my code a comment with the tree name and title of the document.

Then, when reading such code, in my editor one keystroke displays the document for me. So, maybe I have a homegrown version of an IDE with Intellisense or some such. But it works for me. I document the heck out of my code. Any code that is not just trivial has such comments.

Currently the source code for my project has about 80,000 lines with only about 18,000 programming language statements -- we're talking a lot of documentation, and a lot of that documentation is references back to my collection of 6000 documents.

So, net, I want the four collections, the 6000 documents, my favorite text editor with my 200 or so macros, and the code I'm developing all on the same computer -- call it a network effect.

For screen area, I'm short on that, but I have a little code I wrote that does a useful screen rearrangement -- moves the windows, preserving the Z-order, so that the UL corners of the visible windows are equally spaced on a line from roughly the top center of the screen to the left center of the screen. That way I can make good use of about 20 windows open at once.

So, a lot of those 20 windows are for documentation. Sure, usually soon I close such windows and then rearrange the remaining.

For what window has what, I can see the UL corners of each of the windows, and also keep in mind the Z-order and position new windows on the LL of the screen.

E.g., having such windows of documentation open on a tablet would be a bummer since as I write code I add documents to the collection and commonly cut and paste documentation or code from the documents into code comments, notes of my own, etc.

E.g., when reading code I really like that one keystroke to show me the relevant documentation -- couldn't easily do that if the documents were on a tablet.

Mobile device? Don't need one. Can't see how it would help. I'll get one when I need one. It won't replace my PC -- for a long time.