I've had the chance to talk a bit with Bill Atkinson about this. I think there are a few things at play here.
First, HC was built before the popularization of the internet, and as such a distribution model for stacks didn't really exist. I can literally remember mailing stacks on floppy disks. So, people could make things, but not easily share them.
Second, there was a fundamental shift in which software became a commodity. I really think in the beginning it was about selling computers; it took a while for people to realize that software was not a 'value add' for the machine but a place to make much, much more money.
So when HC was conceived, it seemed natural to provide a tool to let people author their own software. As the business model changed, this idea lost out. Software should be something that people bought, not something people made
First, HC was built before the popularization of the internet, and as such a distribution model for stacks didn't really exist. I can literally remember mailing stacks on floppy disks. So, people could make things, but not easily share them.
Second, there was a fundamental shift in which software became a commodity. I really think in the beginning it was about selling computers; it took a while for people to realize that software was not a 'value add' for the machine but a place to make much, much more money.
So when HC was conceived, it seemed natural to provide a tool to let people author their own software. As the business model changed, this idea lost out. Software should be something that people bought, not something people made