> What happened is that _software_ stopped bloating and inflating like a balloon, as was the norm through the '80s, '90s and early '00s.
Is that true though?
Windows might have gotten more efficient but I think overall most software has gotten worse from a performance perspective. With the prevalence of Electron everywhere, performance doesn't even seem to be a priority anymore. And "native" apps using WPF, etc. aren't as optimized as old school WinForms, MFC style apps (though there are other benefits to be had).
My first desktop was a Compaq Presario CDS 520, in 1994. It was a 486/66, and came with 4 MB of RAM and a 450MB HDD. I want to say my parents paid $2,400 for it, but would have to double check to be sure.
A dozen years later would be 2006 - if memory serves, a decent laptop in those days would have run you about $1,200-1,500, and would have come with a Core 2 Duo @ ~1.2Ghz, 2GB of RAM, and a ~40GB HDD.
I use Bvckup 2 (https://bvckup2.com/) to backup on to a 4 TB external drive. I also have Duplicati (https://www.duplicati.com/) running to backup those backups onto OneDrive and Backblaze.
Just chiming in here to say bvckup2 is awesome. It's one of those rare pieces of software that has rock-solid engineering. My heart warms with glee every time I think about it.
I've been using it in place of robocopy for all my Windows backup needs for a while now, with rsync for linux. It's fast.
My guess is the algorithms and infrastructure serve search functions across all of their products. The "search market" is really the "Display advertising" market, and sure, they suck at that because no one goes to bing. But bing isn't worthless.
F# got mentioned already but I would like to add another vote to it. C# is the first choice for most people when building desktop apps for Windows but F# works exceptionally well too. There is a small but robust community and there are a ton of libraries/tools that you can hook into via .NET.
Netflix actually had a feature on the original Xbox that allowed you to create a group with your friends and watch videos together. Unfortunately, they removed this feature a while ago.
