Encarta atlas and Compton atlas had a phenomenal amount of information presented in myriad ways. They were (for thr time) polished and comprehensive and extensive and powerful. I may be underestimating the power of a hyper dedicated solo super developer. But if so, nevertheless the $100 dev fee remains even more the least of the obstacles here.
You don't have to build out every feature much less at once. You just need to be able to iterate your own novel features. That's what writing your own code for your own tooling lets you do, and what you can't do currently with these walled gardens.
Thanks; I do not believe we are discussing the same topic though - what I'm discussing (modern Encarta Atlas or Compton Atlas) is primarily about content, whereas I believe you're primarily talking about code.
I understand the dislike of walled gardens; I do not believe they have any bearing whatsoever on the gap that I've brought up though.
