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> The last 50 years of aviation have produced fewer innovations than any single decade in the previous 50 years. This is just plain wrong. You could also say t

by avar 8y ago

> The last 50 years of aviation have produced fewer innovations than any single decade in the previous 50 years. This is just plain wrong. You could also say that there's been almost no innovation in cars since the Model T, after all a car like that is a much larger jump a horse drawn carriage than the jump from a Model T to a Tesla Model S. The huge amount of innovation has been in the likes of reducing cost, increasing safety etc. Now everyone can fly, only the rich could fly in the 50s and 60s. > Versions of the B-737 and B-747 are still flying Just because it has the same model number doesn't mean it's the same plane. Here's a comment of mine on that when it was discussed a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514161

joe_the_user 8y ago
Measuring innovation as a quantity seems virtually impossible. The form of the modern stove was more or less set in the early twentieth century. But I'm sure someone could find a way to show innovation has increased even here, in terms of numbers of transistors or something. The form and function of planes and even automobiles has been more or less set for a while (self-driving cars would be a fundamental change on the other hand). The form and function of computers conceivably might wind-up being fairly fixed at some point in the future but I'm less certain here.
- avar 8y ago
  The form and function of Unix-based operating systems hasn't really changed much since the 70s, but even then the most significant investment in their development (Linux et al) has been in the last 20-30 years. As a sibling comment pointed out[1] better than I could there's perception bias in thinking that just because something outwardly looks similar, that changing it hasn't been just as hard or harder than initially getting to that point from earlier technology that looked quite different. It was much harder to go from a 737 in the 60s to a modern 787 in the 2010s, than from something like the Douglas DC-3 in the 30s to a 737 in the 60s, even though the 737 and 787 outwardly look about the same, and quite different from the DC-3. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18223205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18223205
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    As a sibling comment pointed out... better than I could there's perception bias in thinking that just because something outwardly looks similar, that changing it hasn't been just as hard or harder than initially getting to that point from earlier technology that looked quite different. Sure, I think in general once the form and use of a given product or technology is set, much more labor is going to be invested in perfecting and polishing it than was originally invested in creating it. This is entirely logical - once X is perfected, we know X is going to sell (or be used) so money spent making the most desirable version of X is well-spent. Whereas if X is still in flux and you spend a lot of time and labor on small changes to X, you might find out some other version of X appears, making your investment nil. Here, there's also the factor that the perfection and polishing of a given technology can mean that it stands in the way of changes that would otherwise improve things. And network effect increases this effect as well. Edit: and remember, all this is talking about why revolutionary changes to products and technologies stop.
    - avar 8y ago
      > [...]why revolutionary changes to products > and technologies stop[...] Yeah, but maybe we're just impressed by different things. I'm more impressed by the number of air passengers carried yearly around the globe being equivalent to around 50% of the world population, v.s. around 8% in the 1970s[1]. I'm more impressed by aircraft being reliable enough that most modern twin-engine jets in service can get an ETOPS[2] rating. There's been an amazing growth in the amount of direct flights, both transoceanic and otherwise. It's like how nothing fundamentally new really happened in E-Mail since the 1970s, but in terms of making it a useful consumer technology iteration was everything. 1. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
      - xg15 8y ago
        > I'm more impressed by the number of air passengers carried yearly around the globe being equivalent to around 50% of the world population, v.s. around 8% in the 1970s[1]. This sounds more like innovation in how to run an airline than technological innovation though.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 8y ago
> The huge amount of innovation has been in the likes of reducing cost, increasing safety etc. Now everyone can fly, only the rich could fly in the 50s and 60s. This is much more about regulatory and financing changes than technology. Air frames are more expensive than ever. Planes are somewhat more efficient, but fuel is also more expensive.
xg15 8y ago
> This is just plain wrong. You could also say that there's been almost no innovation in cars since the Model T, after all a car like that is a much larger jump a horse drawn carriage than the jump from a Model T to a Tesla Model S. The huge amount of innovation has been in the likes of reducing cost, increasing safety etc. Now everyone can fly, only the rich could fly in the 50s and 60s. And yet, the one innovation is written down in history books and the myriad of other innovations aren't.

by avar 8y ago

joe_the_user 8y ago

Measuring innovation as a quantity seems virtually impossible. The form of the modern stove was more or less set in the early twentieth century. But I'm sure someone could find a way to show innovation has increased even here, in terms of numbers of transistors or something. The form and function of planes and even automobiles has been more or less set for a while (self-driving cars would be a fundamental change on the other hand). The form and function of computers conceivably might wind-up being fairly fixed at some point in the future but I'm less certain here.

avar 8y ago
The form and function of Unix-based operating systems hasn't really changed much since the 70s, but even then the most significant investment in their development (Linux et al) has been in the last 20-30 years. As a sibling comment pointed out[1] better than I could there's perception bias in thinking that just because something outwardly looks similar, that changing it hasn't been just as hard or harder than initially getting to that point from earlier technology that looked quite different. It was much harder to go from a 737 in the 60s to a modern 787 in the 2010s, than from something like the Douglas DC-3 in the 30s to a 737 in the 60s, even though the 737 and 787 outwardly look about the same, and quite different from the DC-3. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18223205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18223205
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  As a sibling comment pointed out... better than I could there's perception bias in thinking that just because something outwardly looks similar, that changing it hasn't been just as hard or harder than initially getting to that point from earlier technology that looked quite different. Sure, I think in general once the form and use of a given product or technology is set, much more labor is going to be invested in perfecting and polishing it than was originally invested in creating it. This is entirely logical - once X is perfected, we know X is going to sell (or be used) so money spent making the most desirable version of X is well-spent. Whereas if X is still in flux and you spend a lot of time and labor on small changes to X, you might find out some other version of X appears, making your investment nil. Here, there's also the factor that the perfection and polishing of a given technology can mean that it stands in the way of changes that would otherwise improve things. And network effect increases this effect as well. Edit: and remember, all this is talking about why revolutionary changes to products and technologies stop.
  - avar 8y ago
    > [...]why revolutionary changes to products > and technologies stop[...] Yeah, but maybe we're just impressed by different things. I'm more impressed by the number of air passengers carried yearly around the globe being equivalent to around 50% of the world population, v.s. around 8% in the 1970s[1]. I'm more impressed by aircraft being reliable enough that most modern twin-engine jets in service can get an ETOPS[2] rating. There's been an amazing growth in the amount of direct flights, both transoceanic and otherwise. It's like how nothing fundamentally new really happened in E-Mail since the 1970s, but in terms of making it a useful consumer technology iteration was everything. 1. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
    - xg15 8y ago
      > I'm more impressed by the number of air passengers carried yearly around the globe being equivalent to around 50% of the world population, v.s. around 8% in the 1970s[1]. This sounds more like innovation in how to run an airline than technological innovation though.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 8y ago

> The huge amount of innovation has been in the likes of reducing cost, increasing safety etc. Now everyone can fly, only the rich could fly in the 50s and 60s. This is much more about regulatory and financing changes than technology. Air frames are more expensive than ever. Planes are somewhat more efficient, but fuel is also more expensive.

xg15 8y ago

> This is just plain wrong. You could also say that there's been almost no innovation in cars since the Model T, after all a car like that is a much larger jump a horse drawn carriage than the jump from a Model T to a Tesla Model S. The huge amount of innovation has been in the likes of reducing cost, increasing safety etc. Now everyone can fly, only the rich could fly in the 50s and 60s. And yet, the one innovation is written down in history books and the myriad of other innovations aren't.