4 ms·

I wonder if this is what the curmudgeons from the 70's and 80's sounded like during the web 1.0 boom of the mid-to-late 90's

psyc 9y ago
I find the economic promise of the nascent Internet objectively more plausible than the promises of ~1000 altcoins.
- ascendantlogic 9y ago
  And just like I said, I'm sure all the neckbeards from the 70's and 80's felt the same way about the Internet and shit like Geocities and pets.com. But hey, I'm sure it's "different" this time, right? You're right and everyone in the crypto space is wrong.
  - psyc 9y ago
    It's funny that we can take totally opposite lessons from "I'm sure it's different this time".
    - ascendantlogic 9y ago
      Given the fact that we're discussing this in the comments of a popular link aggregator for a VC firm/startup accelerator, I'd wager if Internet 1.0 hadn't happened we wouldn't be here.
  - dragontamer 9y ago
    > And just like I said, I'm sure all the neckbeards from the 70's and 80's felt the same way about the Internet and shit like Geocities and pets.com. But they weren't wrong. Geocities and Pets.com died without making very much money. The giants of the Internet were Search Engines, Online Shopping, Video Sharing, and Social Networks. The giants of "Blockchain" probably either in awful, primodial form (ie: Pets.com was online shopping, but a terrible experience. Geocities was also a social network... albeit a bad one by today's standards). So today's coins probably will fail to some new coin made 3 or 4 years from now which really figures out the "killer app" of Blockchain. ------------ I think its fair to say that "Blockchain" as a technology will exist in the future. Back in the 90s, one could reasonably expect that "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" was going to be the primary methodology of looking for new websites... before the Search Engine was perfected. So many people lost their life savings chasing after fad technologies of the 90s, Webvan being one of the most notable. Billions of dollars invested and lost into just... awful ideas that no one understood. Frankly, the neckbeards of the 80s were right. The vast majority of 90s webpages were utter crap without a business model.
    - ascendantlogic 9y ago
      Yes but they gave rise to the Internet economy we exist in now. Of course there's going to be chaff that needs to be separated from the wheat. That doesn't mean that it's all going to fail.
    - ijidak 9y ago
      Like so often, technologies are overrated in the short term and underrated in the long term. Blockchain seems like something revolutionary but, like the internet, it feels like it's probably going to take a decade to discover where the real, solid, lasting value will exist. For example, how many would have predicted the rise of small, fairly low-tech, text search ads as the multi-billion dollar revenue linchpin for all global search. Similarly, whatever the core long-term value of crypto-currencies will be, it probably hasn't been truly understood yet. Most of these ICOs are similar to the period before the dotcom crash when simply adding .com to the name of a failing business was enough to lift it's stock value. Anyone else remember that or can give an example? Whatever rises from the rubble of this cryptocurrency bubble bursting is what will no doubt be most interesting and what will no doubt end up being truly world changing. Looking forward to the middle/end-game.
wmf 9y ago
Here you go, from 1995: http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirva... Note that most of his predictions did come true for a while and then were later falsified; many dotcoms learned that "being early is the same as wrong" the hard way.
- svachalek 9y ago
  Interesting. I wanna try a 2017 scorecard: 1. Usenet is garbage: CORRECT although it was better in the early days. This seems to be a general trend with all comment/message board systems, they rapidly lose value when they breach a certain size, although some including our dear HN have survived for quite some time. 2. Downloading books won't happen: WRONG. Paper isn't going anywhere but ebooks are an unqualified success at this point, largely because (unlike at the time) we can carry our computers anywhere now. 3. The Internet is a wasteland of unfiltered data: CORRECT for now. Interestingly, there was a golden age of Google and Wikipedia that would have made this statement look false but now we've regressed back to fake news, social feeds, and personalized search results. 4. The internet will not be useful for governing: CORRECT for the most part. 5. Computers won't help schools: CORRECT for the most part. 6. "Cyberbusiness" will fail because the world needs salespeople: LOLZ. I'm not going to try to break down the final paragraph. I think some of these will still improve in the longer run but 22 years later, I'm still giving him 4 out of 6 here.
  - seangrogg 9y ago
    While I wouldn't argue that #4 is wrong, I do think that as one gets more into self-driven learning the internet has become a major boon. Recorded lectures on 2.5-3x playback, lectures at my own (accelerated) pace, a wealth of information... Granted, this doesn't readily translate to the classroom nor does it fit everyone's learning style.

psyc 9y ago

I find the economic promise of the nascent Internet objectively more plausible than the promises of ~1000 altcoins.

ascendantlogic 9y ago
And just like I said, I'm sure all the neckbeards from the 70's and 80's felt the same way about the Internet and shit like Geocities and pets.com. But hey, I'm sure it's "different" this time, right? You're right and everyone in the crypto space is wrong.
- psyc 9y ago
  It's funny that we can take totally opposite lessons from "I'm sure it's different this time".
  - ascendantlogic 9y ago
    Given the fact that we're discussing this in the comments of a popular link aggregator for a VC firm/startup accelerator, I'd wager if Internet 1.0 hadn't happened we wouldn't be here.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  > And just like I said, I'm sure all the neckbeards from the 70's and 80's felt the same way about the Internet and shit like Geocities and pets.com. But they weren't wrong. Geocities and Pets.com died without making very much money. The giants of the Internet were Search Engines, Online Shopping, Video Sharing, and Social Networks. The giants of "Blockchain" probably either in awful, primodial form (ie: Pets.com was online shopping, but a terrible experience. Geocities was also a social network... albeit a bad one by today's standards). So today's coins probably will fail to some new coin made 3 or 4 years from now which really figures out the "killer app" of Blockchain. ------------ I think its fair to say that "Blockchain" as a technology will exist in the future. Back in the 90s, one could reasonably expect that "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" was going to be the primary methodology of looking for new websites... before the Search Engine was perfected. So many people lost their life savings chasing after fad technologies of the 90s, Webvan being one of the most notable. Billions of dollars invested and lost into just... awful ideas that no one understood. Frankly, the neckbeards of the 80s were right. The vast majority of 90s webpages were utter crap without a business model.
  - ascendantlogic 9y ago
    Yes but they gave rise to the Internet economy we exist in now. Of course there's going to be chaff that needs to be separated from the wheat. That doesn't mean that it's all going to fail.
  - ijidak 9y ago
    Like so often, technologies are overrated in the short term and underrated in the long term. Blockchain seems like something revolutionary but, like the internet, it feels like it's probably going to take a decade to discover where the real, solid, lasting value will exist. For example, how many would have predicted the rise of small, fairly low-tech, text search ads as the multi-billion dollar revenue linchpin for all global search. Similarly, whatever the core long-term value of crypto-currencies will be, it probably hasn't been truly understood yet. Most of these ICOs are similar to the period before the dotcom crash when simply adding .com to the name of a failing business was enough to lift it's stock value. Anyone else remember that or can give an example? Whatever rises from the rubble of this cryptocurrency bubble bursting is what will no doubt be most interesting and what will no doubt end up being truly world changing. Looking forward to the middle/end-game.

wmf 9y ago

Here you go, from 1995: http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirva... Note that most of his predictions did come true for a while and then were later falsified; many dotcoms learned that "being early is the same as wrong" the hard way.

svachalek 9y ago
Interesting. I wanna try a 2017 scorecard: 1. Usenet is garbage: CORRECT although it was better in the early days. This seems to be a general trend with all comment/message board systems, they rapidly lose value when they breach a certain size, although some including our dear HN have survived for quite some time. 2. Downloading books won't happen: WRONG. Paper isn't going anywhere but ebooks are an unqualified success at this point, largely because (unlike at the time) we can carry our computers anywhere now. 3. The Internet is a wasteland of unfiltered data: CORRECT for now. Interestingly, there was a golden age of Google and Wikipedia that would have made this statement look false but now we've regressed back to fake news, social feeds, and personalized search results. 4. The internet will not be useful for governing: CORRECT for the most part. 5. Computers won't help schools: CORRECT for the most part. 6. "Cyberbusiness" will fail because the world needs salespeople: LOLZ. I'm not going to try to break down the final paragraph. I think some of these will still improve in the longer run but 22 years later, I'm still giving him 4 out of 6 here.
- seangrogg 9y ago
  While I wouldn't argue that #4 is wrong, I do think that as one gets more into self-driven learning the internet has become a major boon. Recorded lectures on 2.5-3x playback, lectures at my own (accelerated) pace, a wealth of information... Granted, this doesn't readily translate to the classroom nor does it fit everyone's learning style.