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Look back 20 years to 1997. Before Windows 2000 brought together the home and server codebases. Before the internet was available on mobile phones. Heck, bac

Look back 20 years to 1997. Before Windows 2000 brought together the home and server codebases. Before the internet was available on mobile phones. Heck, back then the internet was used by less than 2% of the global population. What was 20 years ahead of its time then? What would you have looked at and thought "That'll be massive in 20 years"? About the only thing I can think of is VR. Which Sega tried to launch in the late 90s, and only now is selling over a million units.

SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago
> What would you have looked at and thought "That'll be massive in 20 years" I was on the internet in the early/mid 90s, and was told that "the web" was growing massively and was going to be huge. This was more common knowledge by 1997. The kind of DNA sequencing that 23andme sells to people for £150 now? It's not "millions of units" massive yet, granted.
- jrm5100 9y ago
  It may be millions of units by now- it was 1M about 2 years ago (https://www.genomeweb.com/microarrays-multiplexing/1m-customers-genotyped-23andme-continues-consumer-genomics-rebound https://www.genomeweb.com/microarrays-multiplexing/1m-custom...). Minor nitpicking: the 23andMe kits use microarrays for genotyping, not DNA sequencing. It's an older and more limited technology but it is much cheaper than sequencing.
ams6110 9y ago
Many of the web startups in the late 1990s had good ideas but were about 20 years too early. A lot of things that have succeeded today were tried then and failed either because the technology couldn't scale, or the bandwidth wasn't there, or because people just weren't ready for it.
- rjsw 9y ago
  I worked for two startups in the 1980s that were doing online hypertext and searching multiple online databases. Failure reasons were the ones you list plus lack of TCP/IP provision.
- kyriakos 9y ago
  How many social media companies did it take before Facebook got it 'right'?
pvg 9y ago
VR is not exactly massive now.
qw 9y ago
20 years ago I read about software as a service. The idea was that everyone would use thin clients and run graphical applications remotely. The idea was not new, as it is similar to the mainframes of the past. The infrastructure and technology was not quite there 20 years ago, but we are getting close with today's cloud and webapps
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Aron 9y ago
Amazon

SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago

> What would you have looked at and thought "That'll be massive in 20 years" I was on the internet in the early/mid 90s, and was told that "the web" was growing massively and was going to be huge. This was more common knowledge by 1997. The kind of DNA sequencing that 23andme sells to people for £150 now? It's not "millions of units" massive yet, granted.

jrm5100 9y ago
It may be millions of units by now- it was 1M about 2 years ago (https://www.genomeweb.com/microarrays-multiplexing/1m-customers-genotyped-23andme-continues-consumer-genomics-rebound https://www.genomeweb.com/microarrays-multiplexing/1m-custom...). Minor nitpicking: the 23andMe kits use microarrays for genotyping, not DNA sequencing. It's an older and more limited technology but it is much cheaper than sequencing.

ams6110 9y ago

Many of the web startups in the late 1990s had good ideas but were about 20 years too early. A lot of things that have succeeded today were tried then and failed either because the technology couldn't scale, or the bandwidth wasn't there, or because people just weren't ready for it.

rjsw 9y ago
I worked for two startups in the 1980s that were doing online hypertext and searching multiple online databases. Failure reasons were the ones you list plus lack of TCP/IP provision.
kyriakos 9y ago
How many social media companies did it take before Facebook got it 'right'?

pvg 9y ago

VR is not exactly massive now.

qw 9y ago

20 years ago I read about software as a service. The idea was that everyone would use thin clients and run graphical applications remotely. The idea was not new, as it is similar to the mainframes of the past. The infrastructure and technology was not quite there 20 years ago, but we are getting close with today's cloud and webapps

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Aron 9y ago

Amazon