<story><title>A Generation Lost in the Bazaar (2012)</title><url>http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dsr_</author><text>Cathedrals are beautiful. They represent the vision of one person or a very small group made real by the hard work of hundreds or thousands of skilled and semi-skilled workers over dozens of years.&lt;p&gt;Cathedrals are not, generally speaking, profitable. They represent the expenditure of lots of capital over a long period of time.&lt;p&gt;Bazaars don&amp;#x27;t cost much to start. You can start quite small and have a functioning system that does useful things for people. They can grow quite large, and when they grow too large it becomes difficult to find exactly what you want without a really good map. But you can probably quickly find a bunch of things that are more or less close to what you want.&lt;p&gt;Cathedrals are not easy or cheap to repair, but the investment is so large that people usually prefer to repair them. A bazaar that doesn&amp;#x27;t work out makes some local people sad, but they will go to another bazaar that is a little less convenient for them, and perhaps do better there.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s nice to have some cathedrals, because they feed the soul. But you need to eat every day, so there will always be bazaars, and if you need to make a choice, the bazaar is going to win unless you have a lot of resources stored up to fall back on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jaza</author><text>Perhaps what we need are shopping malls. Aren&amp;#x27;t they, after all, the modern cathedrals of consumerism? (And aren&amp;#x27;t they just what we need more of in this world?) :P&lt;p&gt;Shopping malls aspire to be beautiful (primarily on the inside), but they can never be as beautiful or as well-architected as cathedrals, in form or in spirit.&lt;p&gt;Shopping malls have a bigger overhead than bazaars, and are less flexible. But their overhead is much less, and their flexibility much greater, than that of cathedrals.&lt;p&gt;Shopping malls provide more foundation and infrastructure than bazaars do. A bazaar minus its stalls is just a dusty field. A shopping mall minus its shops still has multiple levels, maps &amp;#x2F; directories, elevators &amp;#x2F; escalators, parking, loading docks, etc.&lt;p&gt;It costs more to set up shop in a mall than in a bazaar, but your shop will be more trusted, you won&amp;#x27;t have to squabble for space with your neighbours every day, and you won&amp;#x27;t get blown away by the next storm.&lt;p&gt;Shopping malls are designed with dedicated spaces that are tailored to different businesses. A supermarket has very different needs compared to a shoe shop.&lt;p&gt;Shopping malls are bazaars with a tonne of design, engineering, and regulation thrown in. But they&amp;#x27;re still bazaars. They&amp;#x27;re still where you get your groceries.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Generation Lost in the Bazaar (2012)</title><url>http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dsr_</author><text>Cathedrals are beautiful. They represent the vision of one person or a very small group made real by the hard work of hundreds or thousands of skilled and semi-skilled workers over dozens of years.&lt;p&gt;Cathedrals are not, generally speaking, profitable. They represent the expenditure of lots of capital over a long period of time.&lt;p&gt;Bazaars don&amp;#x27;t cost much to start. You can start quite small and have a functioning system that does useful things for people. They can grow quite large, and when they grow too large it becomes difficult to find exactly what you want without a really good map. But you can probably quickly find a bunch of things that are more or less close to what you want.&lt;p&gt;Cathedrals are not easy or cheap to repair, but the investment is so large that people usually prefer to repair them. A bazaar that doesn&amp;#x27;t work out makes some local people sad, but they will go to another bazaar that is a little less convenient for them, and perhaps do better there.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s nice to have some cathedrals, because they feed the soul. But you need to eat every day, so there will always be bazaars, and if you need to make a choice, the bazaar is going to win unless you have a lot of resources stored up to fall back on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Clubber</author><text>A few points just for fun:&lt;p&gt;1. Christianity, the group who builds Cathedrals, is probably the most profitable organization in the history of mankind.&lt;p&gt;2. Bazaars blow away when the wind picks up. If too many people show up, things start falling down. Cathedrals, and their close cousins, castles, last centuries.&lt;p&gt;3. I think Bazaars have their place, when you really need to ramp up something to show. We used to call that prototyping. If it gets past that, you gotta build it right eventually.</text></comment>