How much of the HN bubble is already comfortably employeed by these giants at golden handcuff level salaries? I don't think I'd look for disruption to come from here.

Surely if there's one thing the HN bubble is capable of, it's rallying a critical mass of contributors around a project like this.

The HN bubble has intellect and skill, but certainly not the 10's of billions it would take to make a viable android/iOS competitor. At this scale only the government has the power to effect change.

Don't sell us too cheap:

People connected to "HN Bubble" controls hundreds of millions if not a few billions of dollars.

Not every of those dollars are liquid, far from that, but, in addition to the raw monetary value of certain people here HN also commands a lot of attention.

I wouldn't oversell HN either. Arguably the value of HN lies in how relatively few users it has compared to FB or Reddit. Bringing to market a competitor to android/iOS that everyone including your parents could and would use would cost literally tens of billions. HN doesn't have that much clout, nowhere close.

> would cost literally tens of billions

You keep saying this as if it was somehow true or relevant. At this stage, we have no real need for an OS that grandma will want to use. That can come later. She can stay on iOS/Android for the time being.

> that everyone including your parents could and would use would cost literally tens of billions.

We need a name for this, the classic "someones parents can't use it and therefore it can't work fallacy".

My parents don't use Mac.

In fact most people don't, including me.

Doesn't prevent Mac from being a huge success and a viable platform for developers.

Same with a good number of applications: A few hundred or thousand hard core users. Bonus if one of them is an oil giant, a defense giant, the armed forces of a wealthy country or something.