> The problem was known variously as Y2K, ... I really hate this take some people have (especially people that weren't there at the time) that Y2K wasn't a rea

> The problem was known variously as Y2K, ... I really hate this take some people have (especially people that weren't there at the time) that Y2K wasn't a real problem. It was a real, large problem effecting businesses across the globe. But the thing is, the problem wasn't that "everything was going to fail catastrophically at the turn of the year". It was that "some things could fail catastrophically at the turn of the year, and we didn't know which things would". So a lot of time and money went into figuring out which things actually had a problem, and fixing them. It was entirely possible that, if we didn't fix something, planes _could_ fall out of the air, or energy providers could shut down for long periods of time. So we spent lots of time and money finding out what things needed to be fixed. And "it turns out that not that not that many things did really need to be fixed" is a GREAT result from that time and money; arguably the best possible result. But it doesn't invalidate that the time and money was spent, in the same way that "I didn't get into an accident" doesn't invalidate the fact that wearing your seat belt is a good idea.