28 ms·

Fact: There Is Room for Your Big Software Idea

25 points by darkhorsematt 7y ago

bbody 7y ago
I hear a lot from people say "all the low hanging fruit have been taken" or "all the big ideas are already done" with regards to tech businesses. Definitely lacks both foresight and hindsight.
- Ericson2314 7y ago
  It's not that everything has been done. It's that the economics are not conducive to further baby steps, despite this still being the beginning of the beginning, technologically. Doesn't matter how low the fruit is if the monopolistic glass ceiling is even lower.
  - bbody 7y ago
    I don't agree with those statements, I just hear it a fair bit and it irritates me.
    - Ericson2314 7y ago
      You don't have to agree with it, just don't conflate it with the technical nativity you mentioned above.
throwGuardian 7y ago
Who's to say software won't turn out like oil/energy. Before tech companies took the mantle of "highest market cap", Exxon & friends ruled the roost. [Google, Apple, Microsoft] look a lot like Exxon today, with their biggest defensive moat being scale. Upstarts prove a new market (Pebble, Roku, etc.) only to have entrenched players take over and dominate. Or, you have to relegate yourself to very small SMBs differentiating yourself with support-costs:revenue ratios that bigger players simply aren't interested in
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  Yeah, the author’s arguments don’t support his conclusion of “go build something awesome”. He points out the gas turbine was invented in 1791 and software in 1948. It seems to imply that software is in an equivalent state today to what the internal combustion engine was in the 1860s. This is ridiculous. Engines weren’t used by the majority of the world every day. What’s to say that software today isn’t in the state that the automobile industry was in the 1950s: the future will generally be dominated by the large incumbents. I have no doubt that there’s room in the future for my software idea. But is the room for me?
truebosko 7y ago
There's also room for your small, niche software idea. You don't need to be the next Facebook/Twitter to succeed.
buboard 7y ago
Computers arent getting much faster though, and software can only get so far without faster computers. The horizontal expansion with the cloud is no solution, it's like adding more wheels to a car. Machine learning is already challenging the limits of circuits and it has to scale up enormously for real AI. As long as Big Corp keeps hoovering the blood of everyone else , whatever value is created requires more effort for less return. And there are other things that are very important such as payments, which are just as slow/bad as before the 'net. just some counterpoints
turk73 7y ago
It's an uplifting article but it totally ignores the problem of software patents. Electronics is worse: I have had multiple "brilliant" ideas for small electronics only to find out someone beat me to it or has patents around the idea that prevent anyone from creating such a product. After the third time experiencing that, I gave up on inventing anything electronic. Before you discount me, I am actually very good at conceptualizing products, but so are a lot of people. The hard work is in developing it further and taking it to market. And then losing your ass 99% of the time. As far as software goes, it just seems like you have to have some inside track. The one person I know who made it pretty big did so because he previously worked at the company that ended up buying his company. I don't want to take away from his work, it was brilliant and I guarantee you have heard of it. However, the relationships he created were what mattered most, and of course, luck.
unraveller 7y ago
There's no space for nuance in this pep talk. Users will not decide to use your software because of your perception of the maturity of the tech world as a whole! Users will decide on features they expect in the moment, ones they can grasp quickly enough. The growth-at-all-costs mantra proves that all of big tech believes they are playing a winner takes all game. I'm inclined to believe them considering how much they value user habituation and abhor competing visions that liberate. They used to say a customer needs to buy from you 5 times to establish brand loyalty. Now I wonder if these monopolies think they need 2 or 3 generations of offspring acting on impulse to achieve world domination.

25 points by darkhorsematt 7y ago

I hear a lot from people say "all the low hanging fruit have been taken" or "all the big ideas are already done" with regards to tech businesses. Definitely lacks both foresight and hindsight.

Ericson2314 7y ago
It's not that everything has been done. It's that the economics are not conducive to further baby steps, despite this still being the beginning of the beginning, technologically. Doesn't matter how low the fruit is if the monopolistic glass ceiling is even lower.
- bbody 7y ago
  I don't agree with those statements, I just hear it a fair bit and it irritates me.
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
    You don't have to agree with it, just don't conflate it with the technical nativity you mentioned above.

throwGuardian 7y ago

Who's to say software won't turn out like oil/energy. Before tech companies took the mantle of "highest market cap", Exxon & friends ruled the roost. [Google, Apple, Microsoft] look a lot like Exxon today, with their biggest defensive moat being scale. Upstarts prove a new market (Pebble, Roku, etc.) only to have entrenched players take over and dominate. Or, you have to relegate yourself to very small SMBs differentiating yourself with support-costs:revenue ratios that bigger players simply aren't interested in

travisjungroth 7y ago
Yeah, the author’s arguments don’t support his conclusion of “go build something awesome”. He points out the gas turbine was invented in 1791 and software in 1948. It seems to imply that software is in an equivalent state today to what the internal combustion engine was in the 1860s. This is ridiculous. Engines weren’t used by the majority of the world every day. What’s to say that software today isn’t in the state that the automobile industry was in the 1950s: the future will generally be dominated by the large incumbents. I have no doubt that there’s room in the future for my software idea. But is the room for me?

truebosko 7y ago

There's also room for your small, niche software idea. You don't need to be the next Facebook/Twitter to succeed.

buboard 7y ago

Computers arent getting much faster though, and software can only get so far without faster computers. The horizontal expansion with the cloud is no solution, it's like adding more wheels to a car. Machine learning is already challenging the limits of circuits and it has to scale up enormously for real AI. As long as Big Corp keeps hoovering the blood of everyone else , whatever value is created requires more effort for less return. And there are other things that are very important such as payments, which are just as slow/bad as before the 'net. just some counterpoints

turk73 7y ago

It's an uplifting article but it totally ignores the problem of software patents. Electronics is worse: I have had multiple "brilliant" ideas for small electronics only to find out someone beat me to it or has patents around the idea that prevent anyone from creating such a product. After the third time experiencing that, I gave up on inventing anything electronic. Before you discount me, I am actually very good at conceptualizing products, but so are a lot of people. The hard work is in developing it further and taking it to market. And then losing your ass 99% of the time. As far as software goes, it just seems like you have to have some inside track. The one person I know who made it pretty big did so because he previously worked at the company that ended up buying his company. I don't want to take away from his work, it was brilliant and I guarantee you have heard of it. However, the relationships he created were what mattered most, and of course, luck.

unraveller 7y ago

There's no space for nuance in this pep talk. Users will not decide to use your software because of your perception of the maturity of the tech world as a whole! Users will decide on features they expect in the moment, ones they can grasp quickly enough. The growth-at-all-costs mantra proves that all of big tech believes they are playing a winner takes all game. I'm inclined to believe them considering how much they value user habituation and abhor competing visions that liberate. They used to say a customer needs to buy from you 5 times to establish brand loyalty. Now I wonder if these monopolies think they need 2 or 3 generations of offspring acting on impulse to achieve world domination.