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i think it’s worth noting that the technological innovation driving the dot-bomb years was… the internet. (please, let’s not get into the weeds on monetary poli

i think it’s worth noting that the technological innovation driving the dot-bomb years was… the internet. (please, let’s not get into the weeds on monetary policy, bad investments, etc) yes, there were lots and lots of companies started with bad ideas, ideas way ahead of their time, and even good ideas that just didn’t get traction for whatever reason. but the thing underlying all of it was basically just the availability of this amorphous thing called the internet that had been around for a while, but not generally accessible to the average person. Now all of a sudden anybody and everybody had an email address and could get on the web and order pet food from the comfort of their own home. There was a lot of time and money spent trying to figure out what to do with all of those new possibilities. but I don’t think anyone argues that the Internet in general or the web specifically were revolutionary innovations. AI is much the same. Everyone still figuring out what to do with it how it’s going to affect the economy, jobs, the tools we use, even the kinds of entertainment we seek. Is there a bubble around it? sure, almost certainly. does that make it itself worthless or transient? Absolutely not. and just as we had some companies come out of the Internet bubble like Amazon, they are going to be some long lived companies that come out of the AI bubble. I think trying to pick exactly which ones are going to be winners and losers is a very tricky game though.

asadotzler 3y ago
It was the Web, not the internet. The internet was old, the Web was the innovation, the breakthrough underlying the dot com bubble and burst cycle and the Web lived on to give us many successful businesses that survived or arose from the ashes of the bust like Amazon and YouTube and Facebook, etc so the Web was highly valuable tech, the bubble was just a bad response to that good tech. But again it wasn't the internet, it was the web browser and the web server and the web protocols and HTML and soon JS and CSS, all just riding on top of the already well established internet. Crediting the internet for the dot com bubble is like crediting the city streets for the success of the taxi industry. It's a necessary condition but not the innovation that made the money fly.
- karmajunkie 3y ago
  we can quibble about the age of different technologies and the impact they had on the dot com boom of the 90’s and 00’s, but it was more than the web. email, irc, nntp, and even early p2p were all a part of the rise of that bubble. and they all had a huge impact on what came after.

asadotzler 3y ago

It was the Web, not the internet. The internet was old, the Web was the innovation, the breakthrough underlying the dot com bubble and burst cycle and the Web lived on to give us many successful businesses that survived or arose from the ashes of the bust like Amazon and YouTube and Facebook, etc so the Web was highly valuable tech, the bubble was just a bad response to that good tech. But again it wasn't the internet, it was the web browser and the web server and the web protocols and HTML and soon JS and CSS, all just riding on top of the already well established internet. Crediting the internet for the dot com bubble is like crediting the city streets for the success of the taxi industry. It's a necessary condition but not the innovation that made the money fly.

karmajunkie 3y ago
we can quibble about the age of different technologies and the impact they had on the dot com boom of the 90’s and 00’s, but it was more than the web. email, irc, nntp, and even early p2p were all a part of the rise of that bubble. and they all had a huge impact on what came after.