This is not a period of invention. Its a period of cookie-cutter, step-by-step colonization by imitation of more and more domains (both consumer and enterprise)

This is not a period of invention. Its a period of cookie-cutter, step-by-step colonization by imitation of more and more domains (both consumer and enterprise) using well-established (even if mostly questionable) patterns. It is (or at least was) the period of being the Uber-but-for-X, the Twitter-but-for-Y. A period of page-long lists of uninspiring logos and machine generated startup names. A period where VC ecosystems became cookie-cutter themselves. Silicon Prairie, Silicon Swamp, etc. The disappearance of hackers is also congruent with the locked and supervised platformization of "big tech". You can't really hack devices. The motto is: "Here is the browser, here is the API, now go play, consume your cloud budget and give us some ideas how to make money". In this context its all about optimizing the execution of more or less the same ideas. And boy did it optimize. Within a few months every silly chatGPTification concept has been paraded here on HN. Of course today we have more latent hackers than ever. The interesting question is what would be the preconditions for them to start creating wonderful and weird things. Here is a tentative list: * the massive expansion of self-hosting and shift to having serious compute and intelligence "at home". This is the broader fediverse or small tech movement * the liberation of mobile devices and next-gen apps that might finally redeem the "supercomputer in our pockets". A related domain is non-smartphone mobile devices. * the re-incarnation of the workstation concept in business context. Monstrous linux desktops that finally put the moribund "Productivity Suite" to rest and offer various completely new businesses launchpads to the next phase of the digital economy Hackers currently have been either co-opted or starved to death by the lack of opportunity. Yet the cycle never finishes.