5 ms·

The Great Web-Reality Divide

24 points by acangiano 15y ago

PaulHoule 15y ago
One of the things that's so great about the web is that you can do things without asking permission. Yes, to make angry birds you need to deal with the BS at the app store, but it's nothing like the BS you'd need to deal with if you were trying to cure a disease or to cross international boundaries to do anything that makes a difference in the developing world. I know a bunch of people who'd love to be working on a startup to develop a nuclear energy system based on Thorium. The reality is that they'd need to budget tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on paperwork and lobbying just to get the license to build a prototype, never mind to actually build real hardware. That's just outside the range of what can be bootstrapped or funded by angels or VC as we know it. If us webby people are wearing the same track down it's because going off that track is difficult, very difficult -- it might be worth it, but we're the kind of people who'll build a product first and hire salespeople later, not the other way around.
- acangiano 15y ago
  Agreed. Capital costs and legislations are definitely two areas that impede the ability to pursue more ambitious, industry shaking ideas.
  - PaulHoule 15y ago
    Some of the regulation makes sense. Back in the 1950's there was a (small) breeder reactor being operated by a private company in LA that melted down without the authorities getting involved. We don't want that to happen again. Similarly, there are good reasons to have regulation involved in the health care sector. On the other hand, doing business in third world countries often depends on paying people bribes. This is bad enough if you're operating in one country, but if you want to reach a global audience forget about it. (Years ago I worked for a voice chat startup targeted at Brazil that was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and largely based in the U.S. because the phone company could have put us out of business.)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Klonoar 15y ago
I see a point made in this article (and other comments in this thread) that I'd like to semi-debunk: it's a widely held opinion that deviating from the "web/entertainment" track is too difficult and full of BS you'd have to deal with, but this argument is a complete and utter cop-out. Innovation is a concept that sits above that; if people don't aim to get above the difficulty/BS barrier, nobody ever will, and innovation will never happen in those areas. Yes, maybe Silicon Valley isn't the area to do innovative work in the nuclear sector, but there is absolutely no reason that we couldn't see more startups based around furthering education, or helping to solve homeless problems, or any number of real world problems that we all see and deal with on a daily basis. The companies that actually try and change the world around us deserve massive amounts of respect, and we should be glorifying them far more than we do (and far more than the startups we generally see discussed). So many of them won't make it but at least they tried to do something worthwhile to the world around us instead of releasing yet another photo sharing app for a smartphone.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  Remember Doom? Quake? Commander Keen? etc., all well in the "Angry Birds" category the author derides? It's the money from those which let their creator indulge in Armadillo Aerospace, contributing to getting mankind off this risky rock.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Bingo. A strong exit on a web startup is a great way to fund something more ambitious.
    - Klonoar 15y ago
      So let's get this straight here. You're saying that you advocate a good exit on a web startup, so you can poor that money into a product/tool/etc that might benefit mankind more? The money any typical exit makes will be around the same amount you'd get from a VC; sure, there's the rare cases like Musk/etc, but those are just that - rare cases. You may as well just go out and get VC funding for the ambitious venture. On top of this, a large portion of startups in the valley will take ~1 million in funding (at least) for some mundane task, then just slowly wither and die, never to be heard from again. If you took 7 of these and combined their engineers and funding, you're telling me you couldn't produce something worthwhile in a venue that mattered? Look, I get it - entertainment is a huge industry, this isn't changing. What I'm arguing against here (and yes, sick and tired of) is the perceived notion that Silicon Valley is a place that is "innovative" when 90% of the startups there are entertainment based. Like it or not, SV is seen as a bastion of innovation in regards to the USA... and we're producing services to go out and eat with random people. If, as a country, we want to out-innovate China/whoever in the long run, we'd do pretty damn well to cut the crap and focus on actually pushing the world forward.
ctdonath 15y ago
"Strange how much human progress and accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim
quanticle 15y ago
One of the the mistakes that O'Reilly makes is that he's looking for revolutionary leaps in established technologies. He's underestimating the impact of gradual, incremental improvements over a long period of time. I think that's the real promise of computer networks and web technology. Its not going to make any one field 90% more efficient. But, it will help us squeeze 5% bits of efficiency from many different fields. Add up enough small gains, and the big gains become unnecessary. This discussion reminds me a bit of the energy debate. Government and corporate leaders are looking for radical new solutions (e.g. biofuels, solar thermal, hydrogen, etc.) and are ignoring incremental improvements in efficiency that have the potential to bring about the same amounts of savings without radical restructuring of energy infrastructure. PS: That's the flaw in looking for the next big thing. It blinds you to all the little things that can add up to have the same impact.

24 points by acangiano 15y ago

One of the things that's so great about the web is that you can do things without asking permission. Yes, to make angry birds you need to deal with the BS at the app store, but it's nothing like the BS you'd need to deal with if you were trying to cure a disease or to cross international boundaries to do anything that makes a difference in the developing world. I know a bunch of people who'd love to be working on a startup to develop a nuclear energy system based on Thorium. The reality is that they'd need to budget tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on paperwork and lobbying just to get the license to build a prototype, never mind to actually build real hardware. That's just outside the range of what can be bootstrapped or funded by angels or VC as we know it. If us webby people are wearing the same track down it's because going off that track is difficult, very difficult -- it might be worth it, but we're the kind of people who'll build a product first and hire salespeople later, not the other way around.

acangiano 15y ago
Agreed. Capital costs and legislations are definitely two areas that impede the ability to pursue more ambitious, industry shaking ideas.
- PaulHoule 15y ago
  Some of the regulation makes sense. Back in the 1950's there was a (small) breeder reactor being operated by a private company in LA that melted down without the authorities getting involved. We don't want that to happen again. Similarly, there are good reasons to have regulation involved in the health care sector. On the other hand, doing business in third world countries often depends on paying people bribes. This is bad enough if you're operating in one country, but if you want to reach a global audience forget about it. (Years ago I worked for a voice chat startup targeted at Brazil that was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and largely based in the U.S. because the phone company could have put us out of business.)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Klonoar 15y ago

I see a point made in this article (and other comments in this thread) that I'd like to semi-debunk: it's a widely held opinion that deviating from the "web/entertainment" track is too difficult and full of BS you'd have to deal with, but this argument is a complete and utter cop-out. Innovation is a concept that sits above that; if people don't aim to get above the difficulty/BS barrier, nobody ever will, and innovation will never happen in those areas. Yes, maybe Silicon Valley isn't the area to do innovative work in the nuclear sector, but there is absolutely no reason that we couldn't see more startups based around furthering education, or helping to solve homeless problems, or any number of real world problems that we all see and deal with on a daily basis. The companies that actually try and change the world around us deserve massive amounts of respect, and we should be glorifying them far more than we do (and far more than the startups we generally see discussed). So many of them won't make it but at least they tried to do something worthwhile to the world around us instead of releasing yet another photo sharing app for a smartphone.

ctdonath 15y ago
Remember Doom? Quake? Commander Keen? etc., all well in the "Angry Birds" category the author derides? It's the money from those which let their creator indulge in Armadillo Aerospace, contributing to getting mankind off this risky rock.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Bingo. A strong exit on a web startup is a great way to fund something more ambitious.
  - Klonoar 15y ago
    So let's get this straight here. You're saying that you advocate a good exit on a web startup, so you can poor that money into a product/tool/etc that might benefit mankind more? The money any typical exit makes will be around the same amount you'd get from a VC; sure, there's the rare cases like Musk/etc, but those are just that - rare cases. You may as well just go out and get VC funding for the ambitious venture. On top of this, a large portion of startups in the valley will take ~1 million in funding (at least) for some mundane task, then just slowly wither and die, never to be heard from again. If you took 7 of these and combined their engineers and funding, you're telling me you couldn't produce something worthwhile in a venue that mattered? Look, I get it - entertainment is a huge industry, this isn't changing. What I'm arguing against here (and yes, sick and tired of) is the perceived notion that Silicon Valley is a place that is "innovative" when 90% of the startups there are entertainment based. Like it or not, SV is seen as a bastion of innovation in regards to the USA... and we're producing services to go out and eat with random people. If, as a country, we want to out-innovate China/whoever in the long run, we'd do pretty damn well to cut the crap and focus on actually pushing the world forward.

ctdonath 15y ago

"Strange how much human progress and accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

quanticle 15y ago

One of the the mistakes that O'Reilly makes is that he's looking for revolutionary leaps in established technologies. He's underestimating the impact of gradual, incremental improvements over a long period of time. I think that's the real promise of computer networks and web technology. Its not going to make any one field 90% more efficient. But, it will help us squeeze 5% bits of efficiency from many different fields. Add up enough small gains, and the big gains become unnecessary. This discussion reminds me a bit of the energy debate. Government and corporate leaders are looking for radical new solutions (e.g. biofuels, solar thermal, hydrogen, etc.) and are ignoring incremental improvements in efficiency that have the potential to bring about the same amounts of savings without radical restructuring of energy infrastructure. PS: That's the flaw in looking for the next big thing. It blinds you to all the little things that can add up to have the same impact.