When we started moving to cell phones, you could still call a landline phone from one. When we created web browsers, they could hit gopher or ftp URLs. When Stroustrup created C++, he let C code freely interoperate, which let people migrate at their own pace, or even flip back and forth. When Windows was created, it let DOS programs run. When IBM introduces a new mainframe, they always have a way to run programs from the previous generation (back to the 1960s, at a minimum). In all of these cases, interoperability with the old system was essential for the growth of users for the new system.
How many computer users are there now? Three billion?
Break backward compatibility and interoperability, and you lock half the planet out - the half that uses computers. And the other half... if they decide to use a computer, are they going to use what everyone else uses, or are they going to decide that your completely incompatible new thing is the right answer? Even if (in some platonic sense) your new thing is the right answer, how are they going to know that?
When we started moving to cell phones, you could still call a landline phone from one. When we created web browsers, they could hit gopher or ftp URLs. When Stroustrup created C++, he let C code freely interoperate, which let people migrate at their own pace, or even flip back and forth. When Windows was created, it let DOS programs run. When IBM introduces a new mainframe, they always have a way to run programs from the previous generation (back to the 1960s, at a minimum). In all of these cases, interoperability with the old system was essential for the growth of users for the new system.
How many computer users are there now? Three billion? Break backward compatibility and interoperability, and you lock half the planet out - the half that uses computers. And the other half... if they decide to use a computer, are they going to use what everyone else uses, or are they going to decide that your completely incompatible new thing is the right answer? Even if (in some platonic sense) your new thing is the right answer, how are they going to know that?
So, like I said... zero users. 100% user free.