I think this article is misguided in that there has been lots of innovation in the tech sector that has been overshadowed by silly things like "Instagram" that

I think this article is misguided in that there has been lots of innovation in the tech sector that has been overshadowed by silly things like "Instagram" that solve "cat picture problems" due to startup culture. The public face of innovation has not been dealing with hard problems, but people are working on them. There are several potential wide-ranging cancer treatments and someone came up with a potential cure for the common cold. Our educational system and our culture must change if we are to get into a period where there is widespread innovation in dealing with hard problems instead of cat pictures. The internet will be a crucial part of that, and in the future, we will recognize the internet as being a source of cat pictures before we figured out how to use it to unlock our own potential.