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The point about having an economically viable use-case is very relevant in today's times. The Romans didn't need engines because they had slaves. I have a hunch

by _xnmw 2y ago

The point about having an economically viable use-case is very relevant in today's times. The Romans didn't need engines because they had slaves. I have a hunch that the abundance of "VC money" and high cost of living in rich Western countries actually stifles the demand for many types of inventions and services. There is simply no need for, and no ability to run, smaller, less profitable tools and services due to the demand and existence of massive amounts of financial capital. One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Ukraine from North America, a country much poorer in comparison, is the existence of many types of shops and services that would simply be "not worth the money" in North America. The abundance of small artisan coffee shops, mom-and-pop tool stores, custom furniture manufacturers, metal workers, etc. I was shocked to find out, when I ordered an office table on Rozetka (Ukraine's version of Amazon), that the seller reached out to me and asked me what height I would like the metal legs to be, because these tables were built-on-order, not mass-produced and stored in inventory, and so it could be custom-built to specification. And then I found out custom-built furniture is totally a thing here. And the cost was peanuts. I have friends in Kharkiv that own small mom-and-pop metal fabs that could build anything you want with a CNC machine or lathe, and it is profitable to operate these types of factories because the cost of running the entire factory with labour and machines is under $10k / month. Similarly, because of the low cost and high availability of software engineering talent, and the lack of VC money to drive up the cost of engineers, the average quality of software here in Ukraine is much higher. As a programmer, I immediately noticed that the quality and availability of small custom apps for all sorts of stores and services. Kyiv the municipality has a very well-built city-app that integrates with essential city services, including parking and traffic enforcement. If your car is towed by the city, or you get a ticket, you get a notification on your phone, and you can pay and pick up your car from the holding lot by showing a QR-code to police. The app is extremely well-built. Compare that level of technical integration and efficiency with most Western governments' apps, like the infamous CBSA scandal, or Obama's failed Healthcare.gov boondoggle. Software in Ukraine is really, really good, from my barbershop to the the bank. I have a startup in the fintech sector, and you cannot compare the quality and feature-richness of banking apps in Ukraine to Canada or the US. Necessity is the mother of invention.

ffgjgf1 2y ago
> The abundance of small artisan coffee shops, mom-and-pop tool stores, custom furniture manufacturers, metal workers, etc. I was shocked to find out, when I ordered an office table on Rozetka (Ukraine's version of Amazon), that the seller reached out to me and asked me what height I would like the metal legs to be, But those things seem like the opposite of progress because the productivity in such an economy is very low. If anything the decreasing supply of labor and therefore increasing costs were one of the driving forces behind innovation in late Medieval Europe because investing into developing costly inventions that resulted in higher productivity became much attractive. e.g. Romans used “classrooms” full of slaves for copying manuscripts for “publishing” in contrast while literacy was seemingly increasing at a relatively fast pace in the 1400s this approach would have been prohibitively expensive (no slaves and literate people had much better opportunities so books were extremely expensive and this created a perfect environment for a printing industry to develop). > Necessity is the mother of invention I’d argue high demand and availability of capital are as important while low labor costs on their own (the reason why you find Ukraine so attractive) have the opposite effect. In the case of many developing countries/mid countries being able to export goods and services to countries with higher demand while remaining to be competitive despite of much lower (initially) productivity of course had a very positive effect (however I wouldn’t necessarily consider banking apps with very good UX to be a very good example of technological innovation, almost all bleeding edge stuff is still being developed in richer/highly developed countries and brain drain is a huge issue in Ukraine and other similarly poor countries)
- _xnmw 2y ago
  I don’t care whether you call it the “opposite of progress” or “less optimized” or whatever. In my experience day-to-day life is just better and everything is cheaper and more enjoyable when it is NOT highly optimized in favor of megacorps profits. Better UX apps may not be examples of bleeding edge innovation, but it is a better day to day experience. Maybe capitalism taken to the extreme is a mistake for human well being, I don’t know. I just enjoy life more here.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago

by _xnmw 2y ago

ffgjgf1 2y ago

> The abundance of small artisan coffee shops, mom-and-pop tool stores, custom furniture manufacturers, metal workers, etc. I was shocked to find out, when I ordered an office table on Rozetka (Ukraine's version of Amazon), that the seller reached out to me and asked me what height I would like the metal legs to be, But those things seem like the opposite of progress because the productivity in such an economy is very low. If anything the decreasing supply of labor and therefore increasing costs were one of the driving forces behind innovation in late Medieval Europe because investing into developing costly inventions that resulted in higher productivity became much attractive. e.g. Romans used “classrooms” full of slaves for copying manuscripts for “publishing” in contrast while literacy was seemingly increasing at a relatively fast pace in the 1400s this approach would have been prohibitively expensive (no slaves and literate people had much better opportunities so books were extremely expensive and this created a perfect environment for a printing industry to develop). > Necessity is the mother of invention I’d argue high demand and availability of capital are as important while low labor costs on their own (the reason why you find Ukraine so attractive) have the opposite effect. In the case of many developing countries/mid countries being able to export goods and services to countries with higher demand while remaining to be competitive despite of much lower (initially) productivity of course had a very positive effect (however I wouldn’t necessarily consider banking apps with very good UX to be a very good example of technological innovation, almost all bleeding edge stuff is still being developed in richer/highly developed countries and brain drain is a huge issue in Ukraine and other similarly poor countries)

_xnmw 2y ago
I don’t care whether you call it the “opposite of progress” or “less optimized” or whatever. In my experience day-to-day life is just better and everything is cheaper and more enjoyable when it is NOT highly optimized in favor of megacorps profits. Better UX apps may not be examples of bleeding edge innovation, but it is a better day to day experience. Maybe capitalism taken to the extreme is a mistake for human well being, I don’t know. I just enjoy life more here.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago