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This is what he's really complaining about: > More prosaically, the 15 years since the internet became a major part of our lives has been marked here in the U.

by bo1024 15y ago

This is what he's really complaining about: > More prosaically, the 15 years since the internet became a major part of our lives has been marked here in the U.S. — birthplace of the internet — by mostly disappointing economic growth. It seems like an old-fashioned viewpoint to conflate innovation and creativity with economic growth. If we're seeing more innovation, we must be spending more money, right? Well ... not so fast. Consider a classic Internet innovation, the search engine. It opens up worlds upon worlds of information to the common person's fingertips. But it only rarely convinces people to buy something extra. (It does make buying things easier, which is a big reason that ad revenues are so big, but it probably doesn't grow consumption all that much[0].) For a better example, look at Wikipedia. Direct economic impact, measured in GDP growth? Hard to say. But it's tough to argue that Wikipedia isn't an awesome example of human creativity and collaboration, or that it hasn't made a big positive impact. My argument: the Internet era has just made us more efficient. We can do more with less money. Economic growth is not desirable in and of itself -- only when it is a signal of increasing quality of life. The Internet has enabled greatly increased quality of life without an increase in spending. [0] (edit) Wild guess on my part. Could be wrong.

JumpCrisscross 15y ago
I think this quote captures his implied response to your point: »for decades, electricity had little effect on industrial productivity as manufacturers simply swapped out older energy sources for electric power but changed nothing about how they made things. It was only as new factories were built that took advantage of the unique properties of electric motors that a productivity boom ensued. Wikipedia, Google, et al are innovations in the way the stock market or ECN were - undeniable leaps forward in the factors of production, i.e. allowing tangible innovation to happen. These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. What is enabled has not materialised with the force that was expected. This will be an unpopular point on HackerNews, but most people live in the tangible world. That is why the iPhone and iPad have propelled Apple so far, so fast - it is a clear manifestation of tangible technological progress. The author laments that these factors of innovation are getting so much attention intrinsically at the expense of follow-on, arguably harder, tangible innovation.
- henrikschroder 15y ago
  > These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. The author's point is that we are still waiting for that tangible progress that these information multipliers were expected to spore. Ebay? Etsy? Kickstarter? Hipmunk? Netflix? Amazon? When it comes to commerce and trade, the internet has definitely had a real, tangible effect on our societies. The above examples are just some services that make it easier and cheaper to connect buyers and sellers, and that have rationalized delivery-chains which in turn led to massively cheaper prices for end consumers. Finding things to buy has never been easier. Finding buyers for your stuff has never been easier. Finding the globally cheapest price for stuff has never been easier.
  - JumpCrisscross 15y ago
    Hmm, I suppose I'm wiggling a bit here, but I'm tryin to pin down why, after quitting a job on Wall Street and checking out Silcon Valley I left with a feeling that the missions are largely superfluous (I'm less interested in delighting people than profoundly changing their realities). Maybe tangible is the wrong word; perhaps innovating on the commanding heights of the economy is more apt. By this measure Google does qualify as a fundamental innovation as it retraces the market for information. The others, energy, materials, transportation, military, etc. are seeing incremental innovation but not yet breakthroughs. Exceptions may be held as graphene and carbon fibre, self-driving cars, automated weapons systems, etc. Disclaimer: I am not Malcolm Gladwell; I love being delighted and don't want to weigh down one type of innovation under another. But I do think there are different types of innovation and that we need a balance. The balance today seems to be skewed, probably due to regulatory factors that will even themselves out in inter-generational and inter-superpower timescales, but skewed nonetheless.
ippisl 15y ago
You're right that the internet haven't brought much growth to the U.S., but it was an important part of the growth story in some parts of the world: india's outsourcing business, probably part of china's growth and probably growth in other places. But yes, except economic growth , it has brought huge benefits.
orblivion 15y ago
I will try to put this in perhaps another way: The Internet doesn't have to spur economic growth, it can benefit end users directly. The fact that there can be a discussion on Reddit about the revolution in Egypt, that includes somebody from Egypt chiming in giving a first person account, that's astounding, but won't ever get reflected in money changing hands. It's direct value to the user. Money is just a store of value, sometimes you don't need to store it.

by bo1024 15y ago

JumpCrisscross 15y ago

I think this quote captures his implied response to your point: »for decades, electricity had little effect on industrial productivity as manufacturers simply swapped out older energy sources for electric power but changed nothing about how they made things. It was only as new factories were built that took advantage of the unique properties of electric motors that a productivity boom ensued. Wikipedia, Google, et al are innovations in the way the stock market or ECN were - undeniable leaps forward in the factors of production, i.e. allowing tangible innovation to happen. These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. What is enabled has not materialised with the force that was expected. This will be an unpopular point on HackerNews, but most people live in the tangible world. That is why the iPhone and iPad have propelled Apple so far, so fast - it is a clear manifestation of tangible technological progress. The author laments that these factors of innovation are getting so much attention intrinsically at the expense of follow-on, arguably harder, tangible innovation.

henrikschroder 15y ago
> These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. The author's point is that we are still waiting for that tangible progress that these information multipliers were expected to spore. Ebay? Etsy? Kickstarter? Hipmunk? Netflix? Amazon? When it comes to commerce and trade, the internet has definitely had a real, tangible effect on our societies. The above examples are just some services that make it easier and cheaper to connect buyers and sellers, and that have rationalized delivery-chains which in turn led to massively cheaper prices for end consumers. Finding things to buy has never been easier. Finding buyers for your stuff has never been easier. Finding the globally cheapest price for stuff has never been easier.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  Hmm, I suppose I'm wiggling a bit here, but I'm tryin to pin down why, after quitting a job on Wall Street and checking out Silcon Valley I left with a feeling that the missions are largely superfluous (I'm less interested in delighting people than profoundly changing their realities). Maybe tangible is the wrong word; perhaps innovating on the commanding heights of the economy is more apt. By this measure Google does qualify as a fundamental innovation as it retraces the market for information. The others, energy, materials, transportation, military, etc. are seeing incremental innovation but not yet breakthroughs. Exceptions may be held as graphene and carbon fibre, self-driving cars, automated weapons systems, etc. Disclaimer: I am not Malcolm Gladwell; I love being delighted and don't want to weigh down one type of innovation under another. But I do think there are different types of innovation and that we need a balance. The balance today seems to be skewed, probably due to regulatory factors that will even themselves out in inter-generational and inter-superpower timescales, but skewed nonetheless.

ippisl 15y ago

You're right that the internet haven't brought much growth to the U.S., but it was an important part of the growth story in some parts of the world: india's outsourcing business, probably part of china's growth and probably growth in other places. But yes, except economic growth , it has brought huge benefits.

orblivion 15y ago

I will try to put this in perhaps another way: The Internet doesn't have to spur economic growth, it can benefit end users directly. The fact that there can be a discussion on Reddit about the revolution in Egypt, that includes somebody from Egypt chiming in giving a first person account, that's astounding, but won't ever get reflected in money changing hands. It's direct value to the user. Money is just a store of value, sometimes you don't need to store it.