• freddy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Some companies made money from some clueless managers and CEOs.

    I worked at a big power and light company, some big boss at the headquarters hired a company to certify our pcs where y2k compliant (we already knew they were ok!).

    A guy around 50 with suit and two younger technicians, around their twentys. I was behind them when when they sat down at every pc in our office, inserted a floppy disk, and ran a freeware software! A freeware that anyone could download from internet.

    Of course the software printed on the screen that those pc where y2k compliant.

    That company charged a fee for every certified pc, and we had lots of pcs.

    • astraeus@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Only certain people had the knowledge to download and install freeware to a floppy disk. Most people in 1999 had no clue about freeware or even how to find stuff like that. Even today, most people who could know just don’t care enough to do it.

      • BrerChicken @lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I would say a higher percentage of people could do that in 1999 than now. At least in the 90s you learned how to use computers in school. These days you’re totally on your own and most people just don’t bother.

        • astraeus@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          In 1999, how many people in the workplace, or specifically in management, would have been in school when they taught people how to use the internet? This is five years since public access to the WWW.

          • BrerChicken @lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If you already knew how to use a computer–which is what I was referring to, then learning how to use the Internet was not that difficult. It’s the parents of those management people that had no idea. But anyone who went to school in the 80s and 90s was getting actual computer classes in school, elementary through high school. I’m a high school teacher now, and one of the things I have to do teach my 9th graders is how to use their school-issued laptops, because they don’t have computer classes the way they used to. Everyone seems to think that these kids are all computer whizzes but really all they’re familiar with is how to barely use a smartphone. If I were to ask them to save a file to their hard drive maybe 2 or 3 kids in a class of 20 would know what I meant.