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Paul Krugman also said the internet was a fad, why is he worth quoting?
by chillacy 7y ago
Paul Krugman also said the internet was a fad, why is he worth quoting?
- bla3 7y agoBecause his batting average, while not perfect, is still pretty good.
- throw0101a 7y agoBesides the batting average comment, he said that in 1998 for a particular reason: > First, look at the whole piece. It was a thing for the Times magazine's 100th anniversary, written as if by someone looking back from 2098, so the point was to be fun and provocative, not to engage in careful forecasting; I mean, there are lines in there about St. Petersburg having more skyscrapers than New York, which was not a prediction, just a thought-provoker. * https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-internet-quote-2013-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-int... That was the year Apple was still on the ropes (Microsoft's investment was in 1997), Google was just kicked off by a $100K cheque by Bechtolsheim, Amazon was four years old, and Facebook didn't even exist. Give it a rest, it's been over twenty years: > I must have tossed it off quickly (at the time I was mainly focused on the Asian financial crisis!), then later conflated it in my memory with the NYT piece. Anyway, I was clearly trying to be provocative, and got it wrong, which happens to all of us sometimes. * https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paul-krugman-internets-effect-economy/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paul-krugman-internets-eff... How wise were you when you were twenty years younger than you are now? Sheesh.