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I think one important aspect of this is that many -- perhaps the bulk, now -- of people writing or talking on the Internet don't have much memory of a time when

I think one important aspect of this is that many -- perhaps the bulk, now -- of people writing or talking on the Internet don't have much memory of a time when digital technology was underestimated -- or at least, did not get to their current positions by recognising when something was underestimated, and going with their own, overestimated beliefs. They probably got into technology because it was self-evidently a route to success, they were advised to do so, or they were as excited as anyone else by its overt promise. Their experience is dominated by becoming disillusioned with what they were sold on. A different slice of time, and a different set of opportunities -- as Yegge says, the recollection that if you hadn't poo-pooed some prototype, you'd have $130 million based on an undeniably successful model -- gives you a different instinct. I really do hear the -- utterly valid -- criticisms of the early Web and Internet when I hear people's skepticism of AI, including that it is overhyped. Overhyped or not, betting on the Internet in 1994 would have gotten you far, far, more of an insight (and an income) than observing all its early flaws and ignoring or decrying it. This is somewhat orthogonal to whether those criticisms are correct!

__loam 2y ago
To be fair to the skeptics, for every Amazon or Google, there were 10 other companies that were actually bad ideas or didn't survive the dot com crash. It's also hard to say how much of the take here is apocryphal in terms of AWS being a plucky demo. It seems inevitable that someone would realize that with good enough bandwidth infrastructure, concentrating utility computing in data centers and increasing utilization of those resources through multi-tenency is just a good idea that is beneficial for the capital owners and the renters. Research into distributed and shared computing was around since the 80's, Amazon was just the first to realize the business potential at a time when hardware virtualization actually supported what they were trying to do.
MobiusHorizons 2y ago
> This is somewhat orthogonal to whether those criticisms are correct! I think this is the most important take-away in evaluating the success of many technical businesses. At the end of the day businesses succeed or fail due to lots of factors that have nothing to do with the soundness of the enigneering or R&D that is at the core of the value proposition. This is an extremely frustrating fact for technically minded folks (I count myself). Reminds me of the quote about how stock markets are like betting on the outcome of a beauty contest. The humans who control large purchasing decisions are likely much less technical than the average audience of this blog. The fact that this is frustrating doesn't make it any less true or important to internalize.

__loam 2y ago

To be fair to the skeptics, for every Amazon or Google, there were 10 other companies that were actually bad ideas or didn't survive the dot com crash. It's also hard to say how much of the take here is apocryphal in terms of AWS being a plucky demo. It seems inevitable that someone would realize that with good enough bandwidth infrastructure, concentrating utility computing in data centers and increasing utilization of those resources through multi-tenency is just a good idea that is beneficial for the capital owners and the renters. Research into distributed and shared computing was around since the 80's, Amazon was just the first to realize the business potential at a time when hardware virtualization actually supported what they were trying to do.

MobiusHorizons 2y ago

> This is somewhat orthogonal to whether those criticisms are correct! I think this is the most important take-away in evaluating the success of many technical businesses. At the end of the day businesses succeed or fail due to lots of factors that have nothing to do with the soundness of the enigneering or R&D that is at the core of the value proposition. This is an extremely frustrating fact for technically minded folks (I count myself). Reminds me of the quote about how stock markets are like betting on the outcome of a beauty contest. The humans who control large purchasing decisions are likely much less technical than the average audience of this blog. The fact that this is frustrating doesn't make it any less true or important to internalize.