4 ms·

I wonder if back in 1990s people were as skeptical of the internet as they are of the metaverse/web3/crypto/autonomous driving today. All of the big money bets

I wonder if back in 1990s people were as skeptical of the internet as they are of the metaverse/web3/crypto/autonomous driving today. All of the big money bets seem to be in these areas, and I wonder if there were a similar group of 4-5 industries that all of the money was going to in the 90s only for the internet to win out in the end as the best returns for investors.

tabtab 4y ago
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." ― Yogi Berra For every ten IT trends/fads, roughly only one has staying power in my observation. The others often move into niches or fade. If anyone was that good at predicting the diamonds from the duds, they'd be golfing with Warren Buffett instead of poking around Hacker News. Note that I thought the internet had big potential in the late 90's, as I was getting hooked on Compuserve (a precursor to webbish things). I just didn't think it would ruin biz CRUD/GUI's, rather staying in the consumer lane.
galdosdi 4y ago
I remember that time, and no, it was nothing like crypto. A better analogy would be electric vehicles today. Yes, a loose analogy can be made in that there was a hyped technology that some people thought might become huge, others thought might merely become large or medium sized, and most others were pretty unaware or didn't care. Unlike with crypto, during the late 90s internet/PC/web usage explosion, though, there were decades of successful smaller scale use (BBSes, academic use of the internet, etc). It was just a matter of scaling it up. The future was already here, just unevenly distributed. Unlike crypto, a lot of the usages were not just emotionally exciting, but actually practical. You could look up a stock quote right away instead of looking at an outdated quote in the paper, or calling a broker on the phone, or having a dedicated fancy service just for that. You could email a friend half way around the world. You could read the full text of a book for free, if it was from before 1923. In general, you could transmit information freely and cheaply across the world -- as long as both recipient and sender were on the internet somehow. All of those things previously were not possible that easily. There were faxes and landline phones already, but they had their obvious limitations. Crypto is totally different. It's been hyped for two decades and, except for illegal activities, still hasn't enabled anything that could not be done more efficiently with SQL database to track who owns what, and a system of courts and law enforcement to enforce property rights and enforce contracts. If you think they are similar you probably don't remember just how different it was to not have a single simple easy way to get and receive information. You had to actually go specific places or talk to specific people. You would do stuff like check movie times in the newspaper, and make specific plans to meet people at specific times. I still remember when Tell Me came out. It was a phone number interface to some basic internet applications like weather, news, sports, movie times. You called 1-800-TELL-ME and followed the prompts. It was massively popular. Where is crypto's TellMe moment? Nowhere. The only useful thing I've ever been able to do with crypto is accidentally profit $8000 because I forgot I had owned some I had bought as a joke... which came directly out of someone else's pocket later when it crashed. If you're looking for a historical analogy, tulipmania is a good one. So is the boom in joint stock companies in the 1600s. So is the plank road boom of the late 1800s. Nobody had as strong opinions about the internet being a horrifying scam, like many do about crypto. Because it wasn't, and there was no reason to think it was. The main "issue" was, would it catch on? Was it too nerdy? I mean, it's not like now, where the internet is almost slightly cool to some young people. Buying a modem was extremely uncool. And it cost a lot of money. So it was more of a question of "Is it really ready for prime time yet or does it need to become easier to use and cheaper?" much like EVs today. And, again, like EVs today, the problem was solved gradually but exponentially... each succeessive cost decrease or simplicity increase lead to another wave of converts, which made the whole thing more useful, solving the chicken and egg problem gradually
- l8nite 4y ago
  I’m replying only because I worked at Tellme, and I’m happy other people remember it still! :)
  - galdosdi 4y ago
    Ah, I'm happy you worked on it! I have fond memories of playing with the blackjack easter egg game with the narrator impersonating Sean Connery! "Shuffling, you were dealt the, five of cloversh, and the, shix of hearts. Say yesh for another card, or no to stay!" I was a child then and I used to dial TellMe any time I encountered a public payphone, just to see it work.
- danem 4y ago
  Whenever someone claims that it took a long time for the internet to find its killer app, I point them to this[1] 1993 ATT ad campaign, where they predict everything from Netflix, IoT, to wearables. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo
- highfrequency 4y ago
  > You could look up a stock quote right away instead of looking at an outdated quote in the paper, or calling a broker on the phone, or having a dedicated fancy service just for that. You could email a friend half way around the world. You could read the full text of a book for free, if it was from before 1923. In general, you could transmit information freely and cheaply across the world -- as long as both recipient and sender were on the internet somehow. I'm skeptical of crypto as well...but when reading your post about the internet it actually reminded me more of crypto than not. Although the internet looks revolutionary in retrospect, it may have felt incremental at the time -- because the telephone already existed. Sending an email vs. making a phone call. Driving 30 mins to the library vs. using an internet browser. What about sending money to a friend in Germany today? Sure, it can be done. But it's going to take several days, involve currency conversions, fees, and likely some phone calls. With crypto they just need to message you an Ethereum address and it's done. What about sending $20k from one US bank account to another? It still takes 3 days. Isn't the crypto speedup as significant as emailing a friend vs. making a phone call?

tabtab 4y ago

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." ― Yogi Berra For every ten IT trends/fads, roughly only one has staying power in my observation. The others often move into niches or fade. If anyone was that good at predicting the diamonds from the duds, they'd be golfing with Warren Buffett instead of poking around Hacker News. Note that I thought the internet had big potential in the late 90's, as I was getting hooked on Compuserve (a precursor to webbish things). I just didn't think it would ruin biz CRUD/GUI's, rather staying in the consumer lane.

galdosdi 4y ago

I remember that time, and no, it was nothing like crypto. A better analogy would be electric vehicles today. Yes, a loose analogy can be made in that there was a hyped technology that some people thought might become huge, others thought might merely become large or medium sized, and most others were pretty unaware or didn't care. Unlike with crypto, during the late 90s internet/PC/web usage explosion, though, there were decades of successful smaller scale use (BBSes, academic use of the internet, etc). It was just a matter of scaling it up. The future was already here, just unevenly distributed. Unlike crypto, a lot of the usages were not just emotionally exciting, but actually practical. You could look up a stock quote right away instead of looking at an outdated quote in the paper, or calling a broker on the phone, or having a dedicated fancy service just for that. You could email a friend half way around the world. You could read the full text of a book for free, if it was from before 1923. In general, you could transmit information freely and cheaply across the world -- as long as both recipient and sender were on the internet somehow. All of those things previously were not possible that easily. There were faxes and landline phones already, but they had their obvious limitations. Crypto is totally different. It's been hyped for two decades and, except for illegal activities, still hasn't enabled anything that could not be done more efficiently with SQL database to track who owns what, and a system of courts and law enforcement to enforce property rights and enforce contracts. If you think they are similar you probably don't remember just how different it was to not have a single simple easy way to get and receive information. You had to actually go specific places or talk to specific people. You would do stuff like check movie times in the newspaper, and make specific plans to meet people at specific times. I still remember when Tell Me came out. It was a phone number interface to some basic internet applications like weather, news, sports, movie times. You called 1-800-TELL-ME and followed the prompts. It was massively popular. Where is crypto's TellMe moment? Nowhere. The only useful thing I've ever been able to do with crypto is accidentally profit $8000 because I forgot I had owned some I had bought as a joke... which came directly out of someone else's pocket later when it crashed. If you're looking for a historical analogy, tulipmania is a good one. So is the boom in joint stock companies in the 1600s. So is the plank road boom of the late 1800s. Nobody had as strong opinions about the internet being a horrifying scam, like many do about crypto. Because it wasn't, and there was no reason to think it was. The main "issue" was, would it catch on? Was it too nerdy? I mean, it's not like now, where the internet is almost slightly cool to some young people. Buying a modem was extremely uncool. And it cost a lot of money. So it was more of a question of "Is it really ready for prime time yet or does it need to become easier to use and cheaper?" much like EVs today. And, again, like EVs today, the problem was solved gradually but exponentially... each succeessive cost decrease or simplicity increase lead to another wave of converts, which made the whole thing more useful, solving the chicken and egg problem gradually

l8nite 4y ago
I’m replying only because I worked at Tellme, and I’m happy other people remember it still! :)
- galdosdi 4y ago
  Ah, I'm happy you worked on it! I have fond memories of playing with the blackjack easter egg game with the narrator impersonating Sean Connery! "Shuffling, you were dealt the, five of cloversh, and the, shix of hearts. Say yesh for another card, or no to stay!" I was a child then and I used to dial TellMe any time I encountered a public payphone, just to see it work.
danem 4y ago
Whenever someone claims that it took a long time for the internet to find its killer app, I point them to this[1] 1993 ATT ad campaign, where they predict everything from Netflix, IoT, to wearables. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo
highfrequency 4y ago
> You could look up a stock quote right away instead of looking at an outdated quote in the paper, or calling a broker on the phone, or having a dedicated fancy service just for that. You could email a friend half way around the world. You could read the full text of a book for free, if it was from before 1923. In general, you could transmit information freely and cheaply across the world -- as long as both recipient and sender were on the internet somehow. I'm skeptical of crypto as well...but when reading your post about the internet it actually reminded me more of crypto than not. Although the internet looks revolutionary in retrospect, it may have felt incremental at the time -- because the telephone already existed. Sending an email vs. making a phone call. Driving 30 mins to the library vs. using an internet browser. What about sending money to a friend in Germany today? Sure, it can be done. But it's going to take several days, involve currency conversions, fees, and likely some phone calls. With crypto they just need to message you an Ethereum address and it's done. What about sending $20k from one US bank account to another? It still takes 3 days. Isn't the crypto speedup as significant as emailing a friend vs. making a phone call?