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>”There probably won’t be a technology that has 10x greater scale than smartphones, as mobile was 10x bigger than PCs and PCs were bigger than mainframes, simpl
by rdlecler1 9y ago
>”There probably won’t be a technology that has 10x greater scale than smartphones, as mobile was 10x bigger than PCs and PCs were bigger than mainframes, simply because 5bn people will have smartphones and that’s all the (adult) people.”
Well written. Although I’d argue that IoT + AI will be 10x bigger (and more). Yes, there are finitite humans, but for every human we could have hundreds, even thousands, of devices. At some point those won’t be consumer devices, they’ll mostly be D2D. We’ll be analyzing the macro market and building new devices that can partake in this new market and we may not always understand the emergent behavior. At some point we’ll start evolving these devices so that they’re as individual as you or I, even with the same hardware. For the first 10,000 years technology was an incredible uphill climb, we’re now hitting an inflection point where it’s fast ice all the way down.
- austenallred 9y ago10x bigger than 5B people?
- skinnymuch 9y agoCould be. We are counting smartphones for 5B people a bit loosely in terms of how they're used. A sizeable number are cheap Android devices or iPhones that are five generations old. Many people don't treat their smartphone similar to how you might expect a lot of young people in a metro area. If you get a bit loose with IoT and automation and AI, a multiplier of 5B could be possible.
- thatcat 9y agoThere will be material supply limits at some point in all this scaling.
- austenallred 9y agoNot to mention population limits...
- njarboe 9y agoTrue, but (the mass of all human created objects)/(mass of the solid bits in the solar system) is still very small.
- warrenm 9y agoEventually ... sure But mankind already makes far more stuff than there are people .. so this "limit" is a long long ways off
- skinnymuch 9y agoI'm not sure about those being 10x bigger in terms of pure numbers. But it's possible. Some multiplier when compared to smartphones is def possible. There's a chance something with IoT or AI will happen or come out in a decade or two that will be so obvious and so ubiquitous and not limited to just one persons use or only one is wanted per person. Like I said in another child comment, smartphones for 5B people is already playing a bit loose with the device usage. A decent number of phones out already are cheap or old Androids or iPhones that are five generations old. A number of those people don't use their smartphone as many readers on HN might use theirs. So thinking that way with some future advances with IoT, automation, and/or AI, there could be something that comes out and is wanted in mass numbers, more than one per person. But really. Who knows :p
- foobarchu 9y agoI think you could say the same about whatever numbers they were using for laptops a decade ago, or PC's 15 years ago. The market is never realistically represented by the estimates.
- skinnymuch 9y agoI guess I meant I doubt the way certain big segments of the population using their phones changes a lot in the future. It feels like a sizable portion will still use their phones in a very basic fashion like I was describing.
- leggomylibro 9y ago10 things per person is 10x bigger. Hm...what if someone had a removable eink tattoo to sell you? But nah, you could argue that the app market is already way more than 10 per device.
- CamelCaseName 9y agoIs 10x the revenue considered 10x bigger? If so, I see driverless vehicles (or the driverless vehicle's OS) as an obvious 10x market.
- panic 9y agoWhat does "D2D" mean? The devices are buying other devices? Who will pay for all this, and why?
- trhway 9y agoA device itself can mine the payment to use :) In the future of IoT + AI there is no really need for "who" (ie. humans).
- WalterBright 9y agoI have several e-readers (what can I say). So it's entirely believable there will be another 10x technology, because people will have many instances of it.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoAndroids will be much larger than mobile phones. We will colonize planets with them. All of this change is evolution. Mankind is making machine in our own image.
- warrenm 9y ago>Androids will be much larger than mobile phones My brain froze for a minute getting ready to argue that Android tablets aren't that different from Android smartphones .. then saw you were talking about robotics
- hkmurakami 9y agoI don't know if it's IoT, but in the US we have more cars than driving age adults, so it's not far fetched for there to be something already out there that outnumbers humans in some meaningful way.
- warrenm 9y ago>something already out there that outnumbers humans in some meaningful way Like LEGO minifigures? https://www.quora.com/How-many-LEGO-people-minifigs-are-there-in-the-world?srid=teCA https://www.quora.com/How-many-LEGO-people-minifigs-are-ther...
- nostrademons 9y agoEach generation of computer technology changes the metric by which people define "bigger". In the mainframe/minicomputer era it was performance, the number of gates you could fit into a box (and eventually, a chip). In the microcomputer era, it was volume, the number of computers sold. In the Internet/mobile era, it was engagement, the amount of time people spent on their devices. It's reasonable to believe that the next era will define a new metric. I have no idea what that is, but it's reasonable to believe it won't be limited by the number of humans on earth. There's still the metric of how many devices a person uses which have a computer in them, after all.