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Five Levels of Hype
- yakattak 5y agoI prefer Gartner’s Hype Cycle[1] way of displaying this. This post seems pretty inspired by it but the removal of the graph really makes it harder to grok quickly. Still, the trend seems to be: 1. New technology, over promises 2. Marketing latches onto the overpromise and bolsters it, regardless of lack of research 3. Companies built around the technology fail, until a few find the niche the technology fits into. Makes you wonder how much money is wasted on just trying to capitalize on new tech. The last company I worked for wasted loads chasing the latest and greatest. [1]: https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3887767/understanding-gartner-s-hype-cycles https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3887767/understanding-g...
- WA 5y agoGartner‘s hype cycle is what many products go through and they settle at some kind of normal utility. This post describes the amplitude (y axis) of Gartner‘s chart imho.
- jollybean 5y agoThere are many products, indeed, entire categories, that never come out of the 'trough of disillusionment'.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- umvi 5y agoThis doesn't just apply to new technology but also social/political/economic ideas too. I would have liked to see levels beyond 5 (i.e. the part where reality catches back up, the hype collapses, the backlash starts, etc)
- nerdponx 5y agoMaybe "collapse" isn't itself a "level of hype", but something separate from hype. But I agree that this applies to things other than technology. Sometimes it seems like most political movements lie somewhere between levels 3 and 5.
- h2odragon 5y agoNicely observed. This has more to do with how people think than how the world works; which means that no step of the hype train here needs to be connected to reality in any way. The product doesn't have to even exist to benefit from hype; that's how religions and dancing plagues happen.
- PebblesRox 5y agoMore on dancing plagues for the unfamiliar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518
- ryandrake 5y agoKind of similar to this Conspiracy Levels chart that was making the rounds a few months ago[1], including the crucial “departure from reality” tipping point, and the “XYZ as your group identity” level. No doubt promoters of major conspiracies have studied marketing, as they are are adept at generating belief and hype out of nothing. 1: https://m.imgur.com/XY5PAvd https://m.imgur.com/XY5PAvd
- celdon25 5y agoThe difference is that chart you linked is actually reasonably well-made.
- password54321 5y agoCovid coming from a lab is 'leaving science"? Well I'm glad whoever made that chart has it all figured out.
- jollybean 5y agoYes, they need to update that list. Jamie Metzel [1] makes a very rational case that the Lab Leak theory is very likely. Check out is interview with Lex. It's more than 4 hours long (!), but worth a listen. [1] https://jamiemetzl.com/origins-of-sars-cov-2/ https://jamiemetzl.com/origins-of-sars-cov-2/
- jimkleiber 5y agoI think there are two theories that get conflated: 1) it was experimentation and leaked out of the lab accidentally and 2) it was weaponization and leaked out of the lab intentionally. I think sometimes one person says the former and another hears the latter and vice versa.
- notahacker 5y agoAlso, conflation between "a coronavirus escaping lab which studied animal coronaviruses is a plausible origin for an outbreak in humans", which is a well-supported claim and "SARs-COV-2 can't be a natural virus", which isn't (even before all the extraneous group identity stuff is added on). Seems the designer of the graphic was focused on the latter argument when he said "made in lab".
- mberning 5y agoThe worst offenders in recent memory are self driving cars, block chain, VR, and “the metaverse”.
- marginalia_nu 5y agoNFTs, Theranos, AR, AI/ML, No/Low Code. "No Man's Sky" is also an interesting case study.
- password321 5y agoNot sure how AR, AI/ML or even No Mans Sky belong to the same list as NFTs. No Mans Sky has delivered on many things over time and chances are you used AI for something today even if you aren't aware of it. Maybe you mean AGI and how near in the future some promised it to be. AR is too early to even judge, with only Microsoft investing into it out of the reputable companies AFAIK.
- marginalia_nu 5y agoI do think there's a spectrum of pathological hype. On the one hand, there is manufactured hype, the NFTs and Theranos-end of the spectrum; on the other hand, there is hype from mismanaged expectations, the NMS side of the spectrum. While NMS did eventually get their act together, what they delivered on launch was very much not aligned with the expectations. AI solutions are hyped because they are AI solutions, not because of what they actually deliver. It's not that it has no uses, but the promises do not match up with the reality. Often it's enough to solve an already previously solved problem with AI to generate hype around a product, even if the AI solution is strictly worse than what's already on the market.
- Mezzie 5y ago"No Man's Sky" is a fascinating example. I was really worried that was going to be a repeat of Spore.
- Ostrogodsky 5y agoCyberpunk 2077
- bregma 5y agoThis chart should be rewritten in Rust.
- ferdowsi 5y agoHah I was also thinking how neatly these categories fit into the worst examples of language evangelism. Some are definitely at this stage! > Examples here are (again) the cryptocurrency scene which has been pretty good at othering critics as “no-coiners” or lately with the phrase “have fun staying poor”.
- ksec 5y agoThat should be Level 6.
- Wronnay 5y agoI don't agree with the categorization of “full self-driving” as "LEVEL 2: EXAGGERATED CLAIMS". There is no proof that self driving cars will ever be able to navigate in e.g. European cities with narrow streets and without lines on them. Full driving would mean driving autonomous everywhere and between a highway with visible signs and lines and streets without any markings is a big difference. its more like "LEVEL 3: UTOPIAN FUTURES" because there is the potential for it but no current systems can handle difficult situations in streets without clear markings.
- inglor_cz 5y agoNarrow streets can be equipped with some kind of helping beacons one day, much like they were equipped with street lamps and canalization in the previous centuries. Anyway, this is a fairly low percentage of the total street network. Even in Prague the medieval center is smallish (and many of those streets are off-limits to regular car traffic).
- boopboopbadoop 5y ago> Narrow streets can be equipped with some kind of helping beacons one day That changes the goal posts in my opinion. The “self” part of “self-driving” no longer applies.
- hiptobecubic 5y agoI mean, many people can't drive without safety features all over their cars, GPS to help them navigate, and road signs to tell them where to go. I don't see how "helping beacons" for robots are unfair but street lights are not.
- boopboopbadoop 5y agoMaybe I’m drawing conclusions about what these beacons would do, but if any of the things you mentioned stop working, I can still drive and won’t go full speed into a wall. I don’t have the same confidence in these beacons.
- _fnhr 5y agoI am not sure if there is a linear trajectory. With some hypes the "othering" starts early and itself acts as a booster for hype, by creating the "initiated" group that everyone wants to be a part of. Also, unrelated, but for some reason, while reading, I kept thinking that COVID-19 vaccines fit all these levels quite well.
- MeteorMarc 5y agoQuantum computing scores high as well on the hype scale.
- thriftwy 5y agoWhy would having a technology as a part of group identity lead to utopian claims? Unless the group/technology feels threatened. Linux is an important part of my identity and I will happily watch how infidels struggle with their malware-ridden proprietary tech, knowing most of them can't be saved anyway.
- pram 5y agoLinux already went through its hype cycle like 20 years ago. I'd say the high water mark of that cycle was around the release of Cathedral and the Bazaar and the destruction of the VA Linux stock. Now it's deeply in the plateau of productivity.
- umvi 5y agoI'm a Linux fanboy too, but let's not fool ourselves. If Linux ever went "mainstream", then the amount of malware targeting it would rise precipitously. See: Android
- thriftwy 5y agoDesktop is falling out of favour anyway, so its potential impact is debatable.
- nexuist 5y agoLinux doesn't need malware because what use can scammers get out of someone who can't even afford a MacBook? /s
- anonporridge 5y agoSee rich people who "dress down".
- celdon25 5y agoI feel like this article itself is overhyped. I don't really see anything ground-breaking here, and the author doesn't really elaborate on why the examples fit into the arbitrary categories given. > This categorization is intended to help people better understand which form of hype they‘re confronted with. > I hope this categorization is helpful for you to understand which form of hype you‘re confronted with. But to what end? No mention of what you can actually do with this information. I guess it's useful if you want to try to sound like the smartest person in the room when explaining it to average people who only dabble in keeping up with tech trends. They probably won't question you. The fact that the draft image went viral on Twitter is case in point. I'd even venture to say that this probably deserves a flag.
- derbOac 5y agoI like this for several reasons, mostly because I like people trying to be somewhat concrete and quantitative about ideas that have a lot of saliency but tend to be thrown around only conceptually. The scale also makes some sense to be based on experience. I'm not sure the ratings of all the examples are quite right; some of them I think might be over or underhyped more than the author proposes. This isn't too big of a deal to me though, as it seems more like misapplication of the scale rather than the scale itself. The other thing I might suggest is that I'm not sure the 3-4-5 levels are all that distinct, especially 4 and 5. Most importantly along these lines, my experience is that the "othering" level can happen well within the realm of 3 and 4. so although I agree that the "othering" phenomenon occurs, I don't see it as distinct from 3 and 4, it's just that the magnitude of it increases as you go up in hype. "Othering" seems like another component dimension, along with present vs future focus and empirical basis for claims. So something like this with levels 3-5 compressed, or maybe just 4-5, makes a lot of sense to me, like it's something you could maybe actually apply in some kind of scientific study.
- saltmeister 5y ago
- eric_cc 5y ago> Examples here are (again) the cryptocurrency scene which has been pretty good at othering critics as “no-coiners” or lately with the phrase “have fun staying poor”. I’m somebody that spends a good deal of time thinking deeply on cryptocurrencies and the implications to society. I believe they a positive, revolutionary step in the right direction of human liberty. And I’ll gladly acknowledge that it’s still speculative until it’s not. But crypto, like any other movement, attracts total scumbags. It’s unfortunate because people who speak negatively only serve to undermine their group - whether it’s crypto or a social cause group etc. and often they, themselves, are the insecure ignorant one that don’t even deeply understand what they’re fighting for.
- zepto 5y agoCrypto is different because the scumbags are motivated by the currencies themselves.
- elefanten 5y agoI suppose this was supposed to sound like a snappy argument? It’s a bland, impactless statement. Even if scumbags are infatuated with something, it can still have legitimate and beneficial uses / users. And the comment’s wrong too… the scumbags probably want to cash their gains out to traditional currencies, they’re least likely to be in it as technology true believers.
- zepto 5y ago> Even if scumbags are infatuated with something, Nobody is taking about infatuation except you. Obviously the comment is talking about the incentive for people to try to drive the value of their holdings up. The scumbags are the ones who do this dishonestly. > And the comment’s wrong too… the scumbags probably want to cash their gains out to traditional currencies, they’re least likely to be in it as technology true believers. No. Anyone can be a scumbag. It has nothing to do with being in it for a quick buck or being a true believer or not. It’s simply about what methods one is willing to use. So yes, Hodlers, and crypto-utopians can be scumbags too.
- sentrysapper 5y agoairhorns
- winphone1974 5y agoThe tech industry has always been bullish on "the future" so I don't think this is different today; what does feel different is it seems hype is now the end product vs. hype about the underlying advancement. This may be inevitable in the highly commercialized, mature space that the internet has become.
- claaams 5y agoAh, the El*n M*sk model of marketing. Hyperloop? Cybertruck? Fully self driving cars?
- jimkleiber 5y agoI wish the chart had a negative dimension as well, or if not a negative one, then increase the number of levels of hype. I say this because as I read it, I think how little hype I put into some of my work, so little that it may not even register on the base level of hype. The downplaying, even discounting successes or achievements I've attained with products and such. Perhaps such things don't belong there as they're almost the opposite of hype, and yet I think it would help me see the full spectrum of promotion and help me navigate it more confidently.
- rambambram 5y agoGood idea. I was also thinking about 'negativity', but more along the lines of: I'm missing the author saying what the legal gray areas are. I mean, in level 2 he already talks about "fraud". ;)
- jimkleiber 5y agoAh yea, I like that idea of maybe talking about the legal risks or overall cons (pun intended) of the different levels :-)
- ismail 5y agoAs someone who used to have a similar level of "humility", i always felt uncomfortable doing self-promotion. You will also notice that others are much more serious about self-promotion. To the level where there is not much substance when you investigate. I have resigned to the view that, this is the society we live in. Things may always not be as they seem, one has to look closer and recognize the diamonds in the rough.