People on here have provided good reasons to why the Amiga failed, and I don't really dispute any of them, but it still makes me very sad.
I feel like there was a roughly three year period where Amiga really was better than all the competition. AmigaOS was really impressive, the hardware was cheaper and more capable than Apples, and categorically better than whatever Microsoft was doing. It feels like the management at Commodore didn't really realize the head start that they had; it appears that instead of continuing to grow the OS, they just were happy enough enough keep things business-as-usual and eventually Apple and Microsoft caught up.
That all makes enough sense, but I feel like there exists an alternate universe where Commodore was competently managed, and in 2024 we are all running Commodore machines instead of Apple.
I feel like there was a roughly three year period where Amiga really was better than all the competition. AmigaOS was really impressive, the hardware was cheaper and more capable than Apples, and categorically better than whatever Microsoft was doing. It feels like the management at Commodore didn't really realize the head start that they had; it appears that instead of continuing to grow the OS, they just were happy enough enough keep things business-as-usual and eventually Apple and Microsoft caught up.
That all makes enough sense, but I feel like there exists an alternate universe where Commodore was competently managed, and in 2024 we are all running Commodore machines instead of Apple.