Some people say: "but the computers become faster every year," to which I respond: "but the amount of data we throw at them grows every year at a similar rate."

Some people say: "but the computers become faster every year," to which I respond: "but the amount of data we throw at them grows every year at a similar rate." There will never be a substitute for good algorithms. In my field (bioinformatics), thanks to next-gen sequencing technology, the data growth actually outpaces Moore's law. I imagine the same is true for data collected from social networks.