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I put wi-fi, at least the earlier generations, up there are the list of consumer technology that will always be supported somehow, simply due to its extreme pop
by est31 5y ago
I put wi-fi, at least the earlier generations, up there are the list of consumer technology that will always be supported somehow, simply due to its extreme popularity. I can still buy floppy drives even though they became outdated decades ago, just as I can buy serial ports. USB-A will be up there as well, as will wi-fi and bluetooth, as long as governments don't ban wi-fi/bluetooth devices.
Wi-Fi runs in unregulated spectrum, which means that no operator has to pay lots of money to governments in order to use the spectrum. Contrast this to 2G and 3G which network operators over the world turn off so that they can deploy the more efficient 5G, which one day too will likely be deprecated in favour of something even better.
Multiple wi-fi networks can coexist. In fact, wi-fi already shares its spectrum with bluetooth and probably a whole range of other applications. Even if a company from say cupertino thinks that Wi-Fi is outdated, the spectrum will remain unregulated, and you will likely have some way to bridge from whatever technology the cupertino devices use to that technology (or well maybe I'm a bit too optimist, that cupertino company has figured out tons of ways to lock you in lol).
- mrandish 5y ago> I put wi-fi, at least the earlier generations, up there are the list of consumer technology that will always be supported somehow I agree with you about wifi. In fact, as you were posting, I was writing my reply (here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29335111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29335111) saying much the same. I've been observing the evolution of tech professionally now for over 40 years and as a serial entrepreneur making risky bets on uncertain outcomes with the harsh (yet instructive) feedback of putting my own money and livelihood on the line each time. There are a few tech standards that become so ubiquitous and accepted that they reach the longevity and influence of Roman chariot wheel widths (which many anthropologists believe influenced the gauge of modern railroads). Various forms of early wifi (ie 802.11b) and various flavors and bitrates of RS-232-type serial signaling are two examples. I still have a couple of 802.11b wifi devices running on a sub-net that are ~20 years old and I still network with devices over 20 years old through Cat5 signaling with / RJ45 connectors.