5 ms·

Here's to looking silly in 2030: - very few desktop applications will exist, they will have moved to web assembly powered browser applications - way more peop

by flaque 7y ago

Here's to looking silly in 2030: - very few desktop applications will exist, they will have moved to web assembly powered browser applications - way more people will work from home and most "work" software will attempt to support this through real-time collaboration powered by CRDT/MRDTs. - the dat:// protocol, ipfs, and other attempts at creating a decentralized internet will not take off, but the concepts will have a resurgence in the later decade (or possibly in the 2040s) due to interplanetary or otherwise far-distance space internet. - way more folks will support nuclear as climate change forces the issue - quantum computers won't fundamentally change the way normal people think about encryption, but instead some sites/apps will be considered "insecure" in the same way not using https is today. - private car ownership will be on it's last legs, ride shares via self-driving cars plus revamped public transit will be the way the majority of folks get around. New developments will be built as "car free" without garages and with restricted car usage like many city centers. - people will eat significantly less meat - deno + Typescript wins - Typescript (or a TS variant) will be compiled directly to WASM on the browser - way more people order food rather than cook for themselves - Many subscription consumer apps will die as many more folks enter into the field, driving up cost-of-acquisition - Stripe becomes one of the most valuable companies in the world

Koshkin 7y ago
What, no 'true AI' (yet)?
- hnuser123456 7y ago
  Assuming you mean GAI, I think very convincing, powerful AI already exists inside organizations with the resources to build it (google/microsoft), and they're trying to figure out how to commercialize it without doing anything risky. Models have already been publicly demonstrated which can leave some with eerie impressions until you understand how it works, and even if you do, the results are continuing to gain complexity and intricacy.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    If Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Apple have GAI, how do you explain the fact that Siri, Cortana, Google assistant and Alexa are all so very, very, very far from that?
nickgiordano 7y ago
I think car ownership might change to subscription service model vs. outright buying a car, but still mostly private vehicle "ownership" in 2030 outside of dense urban areas. Maybe the avg. car ownership per household will drop dramatically, from ~2 to 1 or less, with the rise of ridesharing/public transit.
- flaque 7y ago
  > might change to subscription service model vs. outright buying a car This is what I mean. Car ownership will be a hold-over from folks who still own a car from a long while ago. Most people will just subscribe to a subscription rideshare service.
  - snapetom 7y ago
    I'm skeptical about this. This past year we've seen two major car sharing services take a huge hit. ReachNow was suddenly shut down and Car2Go pulled out of the US. If you end up being right, the car sharing companies will have to go back to the drawing board to create a new business model.
    - flaque 7y ago
      > the car sharing companies will have to go back to the drawing board to create a new business model. I'll bet on this. Either self-driving cars dramatically lowers the cost of operations. Or startups like Nomad Rides change the business model entirely. Micro-mobility via scooters / bikes might also be a valid reason here. But the consumer desire for ride-share is there and it's unlikely to go anywhere.
      - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
        > Micro-mobility via scooters / bikes might also be a valid reason here. I think this is the winner for dense cities with mild winters. During rush hour in many cities you're about as fast walking as you are driving. People barely walk though and cycling requires physical effort which makes it inconvenient enough for many people to prefer cars. Scooters fix these problems and get you there really fast, except they suck in winter, except again in a few years winters may not be that bad anymore. The only (practical, non-luxury) reason you might want a car then is transporting a lot of stuff. For those few situations, carsharing might be an acceptable solution.
JohnFen 7y ago
> very few desktop applications will exist, they will have moved to web assembly powered browser applications Oh, I hope you're wrong about this one. That would render computers largely worthless to me due to a lack of software.
- flaque 7y ago
  > That would render computers largely worthless to me due to a lack of software. Curious, why?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    Because PWAs are not acceptable for my use. They involve far too much risk and exposure, and they almost always provide an inferior experience.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  He's off on this one. There's still stuff life video editors or video games or 3D apps that will always make more sense to run locally. Just the trivial apps will be moving to the cloud.
majewsky 7y ago
> very few desktop applications will exist Probably true for Windows and Mac. Meanwhile, Linux and BSD people will still be arguing GTK vs. Qt.
- flaque 7y ago
  > Meanwhile, Linux and BSD people will still be arguing GTK vs. Qt. 100%. I doubt *nix apps will change much. But you DAWs, photoshops, and microsoft words will no longer exist on the desktop.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
    Re: DAWs .... rendering a physically modelled synthetic orchestra, let's say, 50 players, would probably tax even my current Threadripper system. It has a cooling system the size of ... let's be polite and say two very large coffee mugs. Remind me again how you're going to do this on something other than "the desktop"? Oh, and don't think about offloading it to the cloud. It's going to be on the order of 100GB of data when finished. Oh, and did I mention that in 2020, I'm going to be conducting this thing in realtime (or some ML-based agent will be) ...
    - flaque 7y ago
      My guess is either one of two scenarios, possibly both: 1. WASM develops into a security model that's much closer to native hardware, more like a container that's shipped with a browser. It's probably more accurate to say that your desktop might still be important in this model, but from a user perspective, the app will "live" inside your browser. 2. Apps become more like consoles that stream the output of what you're running rather than the entirety of your data. The computing will happen on cloud-compute, but you could interact with the final product in your browser. Similar to Stadia.

by flaque 7y ago

Koshkin 7y ago

What, no 'true AI' (yet)?

hnuser123456 7y ago
Assuming you mean GAI, I think very convincing, powerful AI already exists inside organizations with the resources to build it (google/microsoft), and they're trying to figure out how to commercialize it without doing anything risky. Models have already been publicly demonstrated which can leave some with eerie impressions until you understand how it works, and even if you do, the results are continuing to gain complexity and intricacy.
- michaelt 7y ago
  If Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Apple have GAI, how do you explain the fact that Siri, Cortana, Google assistant and Alexa are all so very, very, very far from that?

nickgiordano 7y ago

I think car ownership might change to subscription service model vs. outright buying a car, but still mostly private vehicle "ownership" in 2030 outside of dense urban areas. Maybe the avg. car ownership per household will drop dramatically, from ~2 to 1 or less, with the rise of ridesharing/public transit.

flaque 7y ago
> might change to subscription service model vs. outright buying a car This is what I mean. Car ownership will be a hold-over from folks who still own a car from a long while ago. Most people will just subscribe to a subscription rideshare service.
- snapetom 7y ago
  I'm skeptical about this. This past year we've seen two major car sharing services take a huge hit. ReachNow was suddenly shut down and Car2Go pulled out of the US. If you end up being right, the car sharing companies will have to go back to the drawing board to create a new business model.
  - flaque 7y ago
    > the car sharing companies will have to go back to the drawing board to create a new business model. I'll bet on this. Either self-driving cars dramatically lowers the cost of operations. Or startups like Nomad Rides change the business model entirely. Micro-mobility via scooters / bikes might also be a valid reason here. But the consumer desire for ride-share is there and it's unlikely to go anywhere.
    - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
      > Micro-mobility via scooters / bikes might also be a valid reason here. I think this is the winner for dense cities with mild winters. During rush hour in many cities you're about as fast walking as you are driving. People barely walk though and cycling requires physical effort which makes it inconvenient enough for many people to prefer cars. Scooters fix these problems and get you there really fast, except they suck in winter, except again in a few years winters may not be that bad anymore. The only (practical, non-luxury) reason you might want a car then is transporting a lot of stuff. For those few situations, carsharing might be an acceptable solution.

JohnFen 7y ago

> very few desktop applications will exist, they will have moved to web assembly powered browser applications Oh, I hope you're wrong about this one. That would render computers largely worthless to me due to a lack of software.

flaque 7y ago
> That would render computers largely worthless to me due to a lack of software. Curious, why?
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Because PWAs are not acceptable for my use. They involve far too much risk and exposure, and they almost always provide an inferior experience.
crimsonalucard 7y ago
He's off on this one. There's still stuff life video editors or video games or 3D apps that will always make more sense to run locally. Just the trivial apps will be moving to the cloud.

majewsky 7y ago

> very few desktop applications will exist Probably true for Windows and Mac. Meanwhile, Linux and BSD people will still be arguing GTK vs. Qt.

flaque 7y ago
> Meanwhile, Linux and BSD people will still be arguing GTK vs. Qt. 100%. I doubt *nix apps will change much. But you DAWs, photoshops, and microsoft words will no longer exist on the desktop.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
  Re: DAWs .... rendering a physically modelled synthetic orchestra, let's say, 50 players, would probably tax even my current Threadripper system. It has a cooling system the size of ... let's be polite and say two very large coffee mugs. Remind me again how you're going to do this on something other than "the desktop"? Oh, and don't think about offloading it to the cloud. It's going to be on the order of 100GB of data when finished. Oh, and did I mention that in 2020, I'm going to be conducting this thing in realtime (or some ML-based agent will be) ...
  - flaque 7y ago
    My guess is either one of two scenarios, possibly both: 1. WASM develops into a security model that's much closer to native hardware, more like a container that's shipped with a browser. It's probably more accurate to say that your desktop might still be important in this model, but from a user perspective, the app will "live" inside your browser. 2. Apps become more like consoles that stream the output of what you're running rather than the entirety of your data. The computing will happen on cloud-compute, but you could interact with the final product in your browser. Similar to Stadia.