Also I think in earlier days the argument to build was so you can optimize the application for the specific capabilities of your system like the supported SIMD instruction set or similar. I think nowadays that is much less of a factor. Instead it would probably be better to do things like that on a package or distribution level (i.e. have one binary distribution package prebuilt by the distribution for different CPU capabilities).
But obviously the real problem is that you're asking the wrong question. We don't "need" a centralized image repository. We WANT one, because the feature that Docker provides that "just use a tarball" doesn't (in addition to general ease-of-use, of course) is authentication, validation and security. And that's valuable, which is why people here are so pissed off that it's being locked behind a paywall.
But given that it has value... sorry folks, someone's got to pay for it. You can duplicate it yourself, but that is obviously an engineering problem with costs.
Just write the check if you're a heavy user. It's an obvious service with an obvious value proposition. It just sucks if it wasn't part of your earlier accounting.
Those are generally solved using SSL, no need for centralized storage.
The reason why there isn't as much demand for mobile data as they want is because the carriers have horrendously overpriced it, because they want a business model where they get paid more when you use your phone more. Most consumers work around this business model by just... not using mobile data. Either by downloading everything in advance or deliberately avoiding data-hungry things like video streaming. e.g. I have no interest in paying 10 cents to watch a YouTube video when I'm out of the house, so I'm not going to watch YouTube.
There's a very old article that I can't find anymore which predicted the death of satellite phones, airplane phones, and weirdly enough, 3G; because they were built on the idea of taking places that traditionally don't have network connectivity, and then selling connectivity at exorbitant prices, on the hopes that people desperate for connectivity will pay those prices[1]. This doesn't scale. Obviously 3G did not fail, but it didn't fail predominantly because networks got cheaper to access - not because there was a hidden, untapped market of people who were going to spend tens of dollars per megabyte just to not have to hunt for a phone jack to send an e-mail from their laptop[2].
I get the same vibes from 5G. Oh, yes, sure, we can treat 5G like a landline now and just stream massive amounts of data to it with low latency, but that's a scam. The kinds of scenarios they were pitching, like factories running a bunch of sensors off of 5G, were already possible with properly-spec'd Wi-Fi access points[3]. Everyone in 5G thought they could sell us the same network again but for more money.
[0] While I'm ranting about mobile data usage, I would like to point out that either Android's data usage accounting has gotten significantly worse, or Google Fi's carrier accounting is lying, because they're now consistently about 100-200MB out of sync by the end of the month. Didn't have this problem when I was using an LG G7 ThinQ, but my Pixel 8 Pro does this constantly.
[1] Which it called "permanet", in contrast to the "nearernet" strategy of just waiting until you have a cheap connection and sending everything then.
[2] I'm told similar economics are why you can't buy laptops with cellular modems in them. The licensing agreements that cover cellular SEP only require FRAND pricing on phones and tablets, so only phones and tablets can get affordable cell modems, and Qualcomm treats everything else as a permanet play.
[3] Hell, there's even a 5G spec for "license-assisted access", i.e. spilling 5G radio transmissions into the ISM bands that Wi-Fi normally occupies, so it's literally just weirdly shaped Wi-Fi at this point.
I don't know what you mean. My current laptop (Lenovo L13) has a cellular modem that I don't need. And I am certainly a cost conscious buyer. It's also not the first time that this happened as well.
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Eurotrack_Co...
It is sometimes acceptable for humans to use judgment and defer work; the machine doesn’t have judgment so it is not acceptable for it to do so.