4 ms·

The answer to "why were builders able to create so much economic value two decades ago?" is "its a much more mature industry now: most of the empty space is fil

The answer to "why were builders able to create so much economic value two decades ago?" is "its a much more mature industry now: most of the empty space is filled." Here are several real-life examples. 3 decades ago, you could've gotten rich by buying 'simple noun' domain names: beer, pinotgrigio, moving on down the list, stuff like that. You could literally just buy ad space on Google for next to nothing, pump money in, get more money out. You could decide to be the Internet expert on 'potato guns' and build an entire business off that, by writing blog posts alone. You could film yourself all day and become a rich YouTuber, just by showing up and recording videos daily. Try doing that now! You can't live off the profit of any of these methods as written. So naturally the builders, who are upstream of that, can't do it either.

TZubiri 2y ago
Literally go build a couple of houses and become a millionaire, building physical things is in high demand, low supply.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  As someone who's relatives did this full time: n'ah. You will live a comfortable life (except for all the hard work and heavy lifting, of course) but you'll never save up a million. Not unless you're in the real estate speculation side of the equation and you get lucky. The biggest benefit house building skill gives you is that you don't have to pay someone else to fix your own house.
- immibis 2y ago
  Build them where? Underlying the housing crisis is a land allocation crisis (entirely government manufactured).
spencerchubb 2y ago
This is a common misconception. With hindsight we can say "It was so easy to succeed back then!" Why didn't you do those things? Why aren't you trying to catch the next trend? It's extremely difficult to know which trend will actually stick around for the long term. TikTok could be a current example since they are pushing the shop so hard.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  Answers for me: > Why didn't you do those things? Because at that time I was a child, and thus simply wasn't able to, even though I saw the potential. > Why aren't you trying to catch the next trend? I actually attempt to, but since I have an exhausting job, I can only invest very little time at night and weekends on this topic. And no, my (also work) environment is not very receptive to my ideas ... :-( So, what I do is rather attempting to catch some long-term future trends. But I am very sure that I am onto some something(s) since when I presented some of my ideas to my former PhD advisor a few months ago, he immediately made slight attempts to (re)hire me. Well, a few years ago, I would likely have taken such an offer, but now I am not anymore willing to accept the bad job security and prospects in academia (which were central reasons why I left academia).
  - spencerchubb 2y ago
    So it sounds like you agree there is not a lack of new trends :) There are plenty of new ideas and trends. However most people do not pursue them because we're too young, need job stability, etc
fragmede 2y ago
Given the AI gold rush, in 5 years, we're going to look back at the winners of this time, and say the same thing. You could just get your code into lama.cpp, get a job at the winning AI startup, get stocks, get vested, become rich. So why haven't you? Hindsight is easy.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Yea, I remember graduating undergrad in 1998 as a Comp Eng major. Nobody knew who was going to make it big and who was going to be out of business in 2 years. It was a total gamble. Nobody has a crystal ball. Do you join MCI Worldcom or AT&T? One of them is still a world leader and one of them is defunct. How were we to know? Do you join Amazon or Webvan? I chose to go into 3D graphics... Should I have joined NVIDIA, ATI, or Matrox? One of them is now basically nonexistent, one of them got bought and had its ups and downs, and one of them is now the third largest company in the world. In hindsight it's now obvious but it wasn't at the time.

TZubiri 2y ago

Literally go build a couple of houses and become a millionaire, building physical things is in high demand, low supply.

shadowgovt 2y ago
As someone who's relatives did this full time: n'ah. You will live a comfortable life (except for all the hard work and heavy lifting, of course) but you'll never save up a million. Not unless you're in the real estate speculation side of the equation and you get lucky. The biggest benefit house building skill gives you is that you don't have to pay someone else to fix your own house.
immibis 2y ago
Build them where? Underlying the housing crisis is a land allocation crisis (entirely government manufactured).

spencerchubb 2y ago

This is a common misconception. With hindsight we can say "It was so easy to succeed back then!" Why didn't you do those things? Why aren't you trying to catch the next trend? It's extremely difficult to know which trend will actually stick around for the long term. TikTok could be a current example since they are pushing the shop so hard.

aleph_minus_one 2y ago
Answers for me: > Why didn't you do those things? Because at that time I was a child, and thus simply wasn't able to, even though I saw the potential. > Why aren't you trying to catch the next trend? I actually attempt to, but since I have an exhausting job, I can only invest very little time at night and weekends on this topic. And no, my (also work) environment is not very receptive to my ideas ... :-( So, what I do is rather attempting to catch some long-term future trends. But I am very sure that I am onto some something(s) since when I presented some of my ideas to my former PhD advisor a few months ago, he immediately made slight attempts to (re)hire me. Well, a few years ago, I would likely have taken such an offer, but now I am not anymore willing to accept the bad job security and prospects in academia (which were central reasons why I left academia).
- spencerchubb 2y ago
  So it sounds like you agree there is not a lack of new trends :) There are plenty of new ideas and trends. However most people do not pursue them because we're too young, need job stability, etc

fragmede 2y ago

Given the AI gold rush, in 5 years, we're going to look back at the winners of this time, and say the same thing. You could just get your code into lama.cpp, get a job at the winning AI startup, get stocks, get vested, become rich. So why haven't you? Hindsight is easy.

ryandrake 2y ago
Yea, I remember graduating undergrad in 1998 as a Comp Eng major. Nobody knew who was going to make it big and who was going to be out of business in 2 years. It was a total gamble. Nobody has a crystal ball. Do you join MCI Worldcom or AT&T? One of them is still a world leader and one of them is defunct. How were we to know? Do you join Amazon or Webvan? I chose to go into 3D graphics... Should I have joined NVIDIA, ATI, or Matrox? One of them is now basically nonexistent, one of them got bought and had its ups and downs, and one of them is now the third largest company in the world. In hindsight it's now obvious but it wasn't at the time.