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Has anyone read his other book ‘Silicon Snake Oil’ [1] from 1995 lately? Sounds like most of his predictions in it (eg e-commerce will fail, digital books will

Has anyone read his other book ‘Silicon Snake Oil’ [1] from 1995 lately? Sounds like most of his predictions in it (eg e-commerce will fail, digital books will not be viable, etc) were wildly off the mark - but were any prescient? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Snake_Oil https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Snake_Oil

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wombatpm 5y ago
I read in 1995 when it came out. My take away - searching is not the same as browsing, and something is lost when serendipity is removed from the process. And the internet works for a certain mindset to the detriment of other points of view
teraflop 5y ago
Just from skimming through the book, it seems like its central thesis is an enumeration of all the ways in which computers and the Internet are terrible, accompanied by predictions that none of those flaws are ever likely to change. So it's not really a matter of any of his predictions being "prescient", it's just that some things have improved drastically, and others less so. For example, he complains that nobody will want to look up information from computerized databases because CD-ROMs are too slow; consumers won't shop online because they can't pay securely; retailers won't rely on e-commerce because too few customers have Internet access; nobody will want e-books because you can't read them on the subway; there's no way to effectively search for content online; digital art will never surpass clip art and crude photoshops; it's impossible for networks to be secure because data and credentials are unencrypted; and so on. On the bright side, he thinks that at least nobody will need to worry about online privacy, because it will be too cumbersome for anyone to effectively maintain databases of personal information. But on the other hand, with some of his observations, it's at least arguable that they still hold true 25 years later: > Anyone can post messages to the net. Practically everyone does. The resulting cacophony drowns out serious discussion. Online debates of tough issues are often polarized by messages taking extreme positions. > An original IBM PC, now over ten years old, is fully obsolete. Likely, it will still work perfectly and do everything it was build for; after all, the silicon and copper haven't deteriorated. But you can't get software for it any longer. > A word processor may last two years before the next version. These upgrades likely add as many new bugs as are patched, and result in a bigger, more complex program. One that's less and less compatible with old files. [...] Curiously, as computer hardware gets faster, programs run slower. > Photo retouching isn't new. Digital image processing, however, can be so extensive yet undetectable that it undermines the foundation of photojournalism -- that seeing is believing.
alisonkisk 5y ago
He completely missed the boat about how Moore's Law would improve upon the power of early prototypes. It's a classic case of underestimating the power of exponential growth by visualizing it as low-order polynomial, and missing that "digital is worse than analog" is a problem that can be solved by increasing the scale of digital power. But he was right about tech will enable and amplify the worst in social behaviors.

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wombatpm 5y ago

I read in 1995 when it came out. My take away - searching is not the same as browsing, and something is lost when serendipity is removed from the process. And the internet works for a certain mindset to the detriment of other points of view

teraflop 5y ago

Just from skimming through the book, it seems like its central thesis is an enumeration of all the ways in which computers and the Internet are terrible, accompanied by predictions that none of those flaws are ever likely to change. So it's not really a matter of any of his predictions being "prescient", it's just that some things have improved drastically, and others less so. For example, he complains that nobody will want to look up information from computerized databases because CD-ROMs are too slow; consumers won't shop online because they can't pay securely; retailers won't rely on e-commerce because too few customers have Internet access; nobody will want e-books because you can't read them on the subway; there's no way to effectively search for content online; digital art will never surpass clip art and crude photoshops; it's impossible for networks to be secure because data and credentials are unencrypted; and so on. On the bright side, he thinks that at least nobody will need to worry about online privacy, because it will be too cumbersome for anyone to effectively maintain databases of personal information. But on the other hand, with some of his observations, it's at least arguable that they still hold true 25 years later: > Anyone can post messages to the net. Practically everyone does. The resulting cacophony drowns out serious discussion. Online debates of tough issues are often polarized by messages taking extreme positions. > An original IBM PC, now over ten years old, is fully obsolete. Likely, it will still work perfectly and do everything it was build for; after all, the silicon and copper haven't deteriorated. But you can't get software for it any longer. > A word processor may last two years before the next version. These upgrades likely add as many new bugs as are patched, and result in a bigger, more complex program. One that's less and less compatible with old files. [...] Curiously, as computer hardware gets faster, programs run slower. > Photo retouching isn't new. Digital image processing, however, can be so extensive yet undetectable that it undermines the foundation of photojournalism -- that seeing is believing.

alisonkisk 5y ago

He completely missed the boat about how Moore's Law would improve upon the power of early prototypes. It's a classic case of underestimating the power of exponential growth by visualizing it as low-order polynomial, and missing that "digital is worse than analog" is a problem that can be solved by increasing the scale of digital power. But he was right about tech will enable and amplify the worst in social behaviors.