4 ms·

It feels like 2004 again

41 points by herbertl 2y ago

leetrout 2y ago
I think the job market feels much like 2004 as well. Agree with the author on the incumbents being up for disruption in the same manner. Surprising to see that Microsoft has managed to stay somewhat relevant... clearly they had a huge advantage but compared to Cisco, Oracle and IBM they haven't really bought their way into relevance IMO.
- dangus 2y ago
  I can totally understand why Microsoft is staying relevant. They've successfully taken back business marketshare and marketshare in the post-cloud era. Sure, they are dealing with companies who are using Linux instead of Windows Server and Macs instead of Windows desktops, Postgresql instead of SQL Server, but Microsoft has put all the developers on GitHub, Copilot, running their not-Windows-based apps on Azure, communidating with Microsoft Teams, etc. They've made all the right bets lately and are focusing on the areas that provide the most value and interconnected usefulness to typical businesses. If Apple is the ultimate seamless hardware ecosystem, Microsoft is the ultimate seamless IT and software development ecosystem.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
lbotos 2y ago
Meta: At first glance, the link color made me think of the default visited link color.
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I think the author is overly optimistic about non-tech people. Non-tech people don't realize Google is getting worse or Chrome is bloated. Non-tech people go to Best Buy because "my computer is slow", drop triple or quadruple digits on a new laptop and then move on. The renaissance of the open, human internet is in full swing only among the small number of people who have an opinion about the open, human internet.
- techfeathers 2y ago
  I agree about overoptimism, and I hope we sort of don't have a renaissance of the open, human internet, and instead we have a renaissance of meatspace.
  - Syonyk 2y ago
    Indeed. We've tried the "digitally intermediated life" thing, and Covid was a solid stress test of it. The "We can do all this digitally with computers and tablets!" sorts got everything they ever wanted. David Sax, who wrote The Future is Analog back in 2016, has another book from 2022: The Revenge of Analog. It looks at the data from at least the first year or two of Covid and concludes, "Wow, this is awful for humans." We need to get back to in person meeting with people, and find ways to expand that out again - it's been the default for most of human history, except about the past decade and change. We've tried it, and found it wanting. So let's go back to things we know work. I'm hopeful about the next generation of teenagers coming up - they've seen the digital destruction caused by smartphones everywhere, and at least some of them are opting to carry flip phones instead of smartphones. We're seeing schools starting to simply ban phones entirely during the day, with massively positive results. So I think the changes are happening!
    - christhecaribou 2y ago
      I want my remote work back from that period.
      - red-iron-pine 2y ago
        it never left mon ami. i've been remote since 2015 and nothing has really changed. niche orgs and niche skillsets, usually highly in demand and qualified, will make it work.
    - iforgotpassword 2y ago
      What I really liked were small-ish online communities focused on a specific topic. Reddit is (was?) great for finding answers to weird issues and questions much faster due to its size, but I never really felt like I was part of a community in any subreddit. Still, with all that social media focused on self-promotion it was close enough to the old days of bulletin boards with aliases and not caring so much about who's behind them.
stonethrowaway 2y ago
Fuck man. I wish it did feel like 2004. Much simpler times even if it was a somersault to connect to peoples IP addresses to play a simple game. I think the article is a tad overblown. 2004 used to be way worse than today. I’ll take Gmail as-is just fine.
- iso8859-1 2y ago
  In 2004, IPv4 addresses may have been cheaper, but IPv6 wasn't as widely used as today. Now, 88% of mobile operators offer IPv6, and 94% of fixed ISPs: https://en.arcep.fr/news/press-releases/view/n/transition-to-ipv6-210423.html https://en.arcep.fr/news/press-releases/view/n/transition-to... So the price of a single routable address has gone down by a _massive_ factor.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    The slowness of the IPv6 was embarrassing even 20 years ago. I'm still shaking my head in disappointment that it's only 88% of mobile and 94% of fixed. I mean, there's about twice as many active phones in the world as the full range of the IPv4 address space including the non-routable addresses…
kgrin 2y ago
[flagged]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
aside: can we fix that double slash in the submitted url odd that it was submitted that way multiple times
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Hard to say what Anil is getting at/seeing here. The web is not massively open and on the cusp of many new platforms and the 'web 2.0' boom that happened around then. It's consolidated around a handful of platforms all vying for the same 'engagement', having already mostly pushed out/crippled independent news, and any independent social networks are niche/also-ran silos that in most cases are barely holding on or in a constant struggle for traction. The one bright light and I know he sees it and is encouraged by it is more ppl especially in tech circles are paying more attention/thinking about the possibilities of being indie driven by a resurgence in awareness about the true value of that. But that's also an aside, non-mainstream thing, and there's a whole generation(s) of new devs and users coming up that have only ever lived inside facebook, TikTok, whatsapp and Apple's 'what's a file' ecosystem. Gotta keep the fire burning as it were.
wk_end 2y ago
An article assessing the state of tech in 2024 is a bit remiss if it's not mentioning AI, for better or for worse. Regardless of your feelings about it, it makes things these days feel very different from the stagnation described in 2004.
- christhecaribou 2y ago
  How? AI is a marketing bubble. It’s the only reason tech stocks haven’t collapsed.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    AI is both a marketing bubble and a somewhat useful set of products, just like the web itself was in the early days. To me this feels like the dot-com bubble: lots of terrible business ideas as people feel-out the new opportunity space. That said, what's different? I would say that his time there's also a lot of new businesses rapidly imploding because as soon as one person publishes an idea that gets tech-demo level of traction, almost anyone can ask an LLM to code up the same idea and publish their own equivalent in a few hours.
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      > almost anyone can ask an LLM to code up the same idea and publish their own equivalent in a few hours I can guarantee you have never used an LLM to code anything seriously large, complex, or novel
      - ben_w 2y ago
        > I can guarantee you have never used an LLM to code anything seriously large, complex, or novel I'm not claiming to have done so, I'm saying almost all of the business ideas in the current bubble are so small and trivial they're also easily duplicated by an LLM. I agree with the implication that where LLMs are at their best is precisely when they're not doing something large, complex or (particularly) novel. But most of the ideas being tried out are also not large, complex or novel — just as the dot-com bubble had "making a loss on every sale but making it up with volume" and then the mobile app era had "now you can order your pizza on your phone" (like you couldn't already even without an app), the AI era has many very poorly thought out ideas that are easy to replicate.
burningChrome 2y ago
Its interesting to note I wasn't in tech in 2004, so I went back and started digging around because I honestly don't remember much about that year. I do remember vividly the first dot com bust in 00'-01', but 2004 is kind of a weird year. Comparing what 20024 feels like compared to 2004 (what I've read), the times are very similar. Lots of contracting. Lots of layoffs and waiting to see if the economy gets better. Lots of companies tightening their belts and right now? I'm not getting nearly the interest from recruiters I did even a few years ago. The few interviews I have taken, the process has become increasingly more complex. It used to be two, maybe three interviews. One screen, one technical and one onsite for "cultural" fit. Now? I just had a company tell me the have SEVEN stages of interviews, including two all day interviews on site. I have no idea why its gotten this crazy, but here we are. An article from CNN at the beginning of 2004: https://money.cnn.com/2004/02/09/news/economy/jobs_model/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/2004/02/09/news/economy/jobs_model/ind... Confounded by sluggish job growth, some economists are starting to suggest that underlying changes in the labor market -- including globalization -- mean it may be time to throw out the old forecasting models. If they're wrong, then the current labor market could look a lot like that of the early 1990s -- a "jobless recovery" followed by a job boom. If they're right, then the next job boom could be a long time coming. The final quote is kind of interesting considering we're 20 years on from 2004: "The United States has long drawn comfort from the quality differential of its educational system," Roach wrote. "However, in the Internet Age with its ubiquitous diffusion of knowledge, innovation, and technological change, that may turn out to be an increasingly false sense of security."

41 points by herbertl 2y ago

I think the job market feels much like 2004 as well. Agree with the author on the incumbents being up for disruption in the same manner. Surprising to see that Microsoft has managed to stay somewhat relevant... clearly they had a huge advantage but compared to Cisco, Oracle and IBM they haven't really bought their way into relevance IMO.

dangus 2y ago
I can totally understand why Microsoft is staying relevant. They've successfully taken back business marketshare and marketshare in the post-cloud era. Sure, they are dealing with companies who are using Linux instead of Windows Server and Macs instead of Windows desktops, Postgresql instead of SQL Server, but Microsoft has put all the developers on GitHub, Copilot, running their not-Windows-based apps on Azure, communidating with Microsoft Teams, etc. They've made all the right bets lately and are focusing on the areas that provide the most value and interconnected usefulness to typical businesses. If Apple is the ultimate seamless hardware ecosystem, Microsoft is the ultimate seamless IT and software development ecosystem.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

lbotos 2y ago

Meta: At first glance, the link color made me think of the default visited link color.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I think the author is overly optimistic about non-tech people. Non-tech people don't realize Google is getting worse or Chrome is bloated. Non-tech people go to Best Buy because "my computer is slow", drop triple or quadruple digits on a new laptop and then move on. The renaissance of the open, human internet is in full swing only among the small number of people who have an opinion about the open, human internet.

techfeathers 2y ago
I agree about overoptimism, and I hope we sort of don't have a renaissance of the open, human internet, and instead we have a renaissance of meatspace.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  Indeed. We've tried the "digitally intermediated life" thing, and Covid was a solid stress test of it. The "We can do all this digitally with computers and tablets!" sorts got everything they ever wanted. David Sax, who wrote The Future is Analog back in 2016, has another book from 2022: The Revenge of Analog. It looks at the data from at least the first year or two of Covid and concludes, "Wow, this is awful for humans." We need to get back to in person meeting with people, and find ways to expand that out again - it's been the default for most of human history, except about the past decade and change. We've tried it, and found it wanting. So let's go back to things we know work. I'm hopeful about the next generation of teenagers coming up - they've seen the digital destruction caused by smartphones everywhere, and at least some of them are opting to carry flip phones instead of smartphones. We're seeing schools starting to simply ban phones entirely during the day, with massively positive results. So I think the changes are happening!
  - christhecaribou 2y ago
    I want my remote work back from that period.
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      it never left mon ami. i've been remote since 2015 and nothing has really changed. niche orgs and niche skillsets, usually highly in demand and qualified, will make it work.
  - iforgotpassword 2y ago
    What I really liked were small-ish online communities focused on a specific topic. Reddit is (was?) great for finding answers to weird issues and questions much faster due to its size, but I never really felt like I was part of a community in any subreddit. Still, with all that social media focused on self-promotion it was close enough to the old days of bulletin boards with aliases and not caring so much about who's behind them.

stonethrowaway 2y ago

Fuck man. I wish it did feel like 2004. Much simpler times even if it was a somersault to connect to peoples IP addresses to play a simple game. I think the article is a tad overblown. 2004 used to be way worse than today. I’ll take Gmail as-is just fine.

iso8859-1 2y ago
In 2004, IPv4 addresses may have been cheaper, but IPv6 wasn't as widely used as today. Now, 88% of mobile operators offer IPv6, and 94% of fixed ISPs: https://en.arcep.fr/news/press-releases/view/n/transition-to-ipv6-210423.html https://en.arcep.fr/news/press-releases/view/n/transition-to... So the price of a single routable address has gone down by a _massive_ factor.
- ben_w 2y ago
  The slowness of the IPv6 was embarrassing even 20 years ago. I'm still shaking my head in disappointment that it's only 88% of mobile and 94% of fixed. I mean, there's about twice as many active phones in the world as the full range of the IPv4 address space including the non-routable addresses…

kgrin 2y ago

[flagged]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

aside: can we fix that double slash in the submitted url odd that it was submitted that way multiple times

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Hard to say what Anil is getting at/seeing here. The web is not massively open and on the cusp of many new platforms and the 'web 2.0' boom that happened around then. It's consolidated around a handful of platforms all vying for the same 'engagement', having already mostly pushed out/crippled independent news, and any independent social networks are niche/also-ran silos that in most cases are barely holding on or in a constant struggle for traction. The one bright light and I know he sees it and is encouraged by it is more ppl especially in tech circles are paying more attention/thinking about the possibilities of being indie driven by a resurgence in awareness about the true value of that. But that's also an aside, non-mainstream thing, and there's a whole generation(s) of new devs and users coming up that have only ever lived inside facebook, TikTok, whatsapp and Apple's 'what's a file' ecosystem. Gotta keep the fire burning as it were.

wk_end 2y ago

An article assessing the state of tech in 2024 is a bit remiss if it's not mentioning AI, for better or for worse. Regardless of your feelings about it, it makes things these days feel very different from the stagnation described in 2004.

christhecaribou 2y ago
How? AI is a marketing bubble. It’s the only reason tech stocks haven’t collapsed.
- ben_w 2y ago
  AI is both a marketing bubble and a somewhat useful set of products, just like the web itself was in the early days. To me this feels like the dot-com bubble: lots of terrible business ideas as people feel-out the new opportunity space. That said, what's different? I would say that his time there's also a lot of new businesses rapidly imploding because as soon as one person publishes an idea that gets tech-demo level of traction, almost anyone can ask an LLM to code up the same idea and publish their own equivalent in a few hours.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    > almost anyone can ask an LLM to code up the same idea and publish their own equivalent in a few hours I can guarantee you have never used an LLM to code anything seriously large, complex, or novel
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > I can guarantee you have never used an LLM to code anything seriously large, complex, or novel I'm not claiming to have done so, I'm saying almost all of the business ideas in the current bubble are so small and trivial they're also easily duplicated by an LLM. I agree with the implication that where LLMs are at their best is precisely when they're not doing something large, complex or (particularly) novel. But most of the ideas being tried out are also not large, complex or novel — just as the dot-com bubble had "making a loss on every sale but making it up with volume" and then the mobile app era had "now you can order your pizza on your phone" (like you couldn't already even without an app), the AI era has many very poorly thought out ideas that are easy to replicate.

burningChrome 2y ago

Its interesting to note I wasn't in tech in 2004, so I went back and started digging around because I honestly don't remember much about that year. I do remember vividly the first dot com bust in 00'-01', but 2004 is kind of a weird year. Comparing what 20024 feels like compared to 2004 (what I've read), the times are very similar. Lots of contracting. Lots of layoffs and waiting to see if the economy gets better. Lots of companies tightening their belts and right now? I'm not getting nearly the interest from recruiters I did even a few years ago. The few interviews I have taken, the process has become increasingly more complex. It used to be two, maybe three interviews. One screen, one technical and one onsite for "cultural" fit. Now? I just had a company tell me the have SEVEN stages of interviews, including two all day interviews on site. I have no idea why its gotten this crazy, but here we are. An article from CNN at the beginning of 2004: https://money.cnn.com/2004/02/09/news/economy/jobs_model/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/2004/02/09/news/economy/jobs_model/ind... Confounded by sluggish job growth, some economists are starting to suggest that underlying changes in the labor market -- including globalization -- mean it may be time to throw out the old forecasting models. If they're wrong, then the current labor market could look a lot like that of the early 1990s -- a "jobless recovery" followed by a job boom. If they're right, then the next job boom could be a long time coming. The final quote is kind of interesting considering we're 20 years on from 2004: "The United States has long drawn comfort from the quality differential of its educational system," Roach wrote. "However, in the Internet Age with its ubiquitous diffusion of knowledge, innovation, and technological change, that may turn out to be an increasingly false sense of security."