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Hackernews used to dunk on Airbnb, Coinbase and Uber. Now they're part of our daily lives. Feels like we’re watching the same arc play out with LLMs. I wonder

Hackernews used to dunk on Airbnb, Coinbase and Uber. Now they're part of our daily lives. Feels like we’re watching the same arc play out with LLMs. I wonder if we’re seeing the same pattern repeat here with ChatGPT becoming big. Outrage followed by inevitability.

ranger_danger 1y ago
It's basically the "Oh no! Anyway..." Clarkson meme.
mouse_ 1y ago
The problem isn't that OpenAI is big news. The problem is that OpenAI currently appears to be worth more than AirBNB, Coinbase, Uber and Lyft combined, and Sam would have you believe this is still AI's "early stage". How much more liquidity is even left for this thing to soak up?
- coffeecoders 1y ago
  Yeah, the valuations are crazy, but think about it this way: the app economy and gig economy seemed absurdly speculative at first too. And now they’re worth trillions. Early stage hype overshoots, sure, but sometimes it’s just pricing in things the old frameworks can’t even model yet.
AlexandrB 1y ago
Airbnb and Uber are shit in 2025. They're basically no better than what they were trying to replace. "The arc" you describe is people saying that these products aren't a magical solution that prints money and being proven right as the products are worn down to the level of the thing they were trying to disrupt by market forces. Uber, in particular, drives me nuts because we replaced a supposedly powerful and evil taxi cartel (which happened to be a bunch of small, regional businesses) with a huge multinational corporation. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
- coffeecoders 1y ago
  Totally get the frustration. Uber and Airbnb definitely have their flaws. But the sheer scale of users (200M last I checked) shows that a product can be both polarizing and essential at the same time. Kind of like how we’re seeing with LLMs: not perfect, often overhyped, but undeniably useful at scale.
  - lomase 1y ago
    Taxis and housing existed and where more afordable before those companies took over the market. If I make a company buy every hospital in the world you will think is essential, but is not. The hospitals did exist before.
    - coffeecoders 1y ago
      Convenience, consistency, and global. They solved real pain points, even if the cost and ethics are now questionable. It’s like a software library that’s buggy and bloated but everyone depends on it because rewriting it from scratch is harder than dealing with its flaws.
      - lomase 1y ago
        You start from a false premise, that we have now is better than before. Taxis were better than Ubers, bed&breakfast were better than AirBnB. Maybe you are just too young to know it. The only reason we moved to Uber is because it was half the price of taxis, because it was subsidized, not anymore.
        coffeecoders 1y ago
        Uber and Airbnb solved real pain points: global availability, predictable, nice interfaces, cashless payments, reviews etc. These are the things small, local systems struggled to provide consistently. Also, my point isn't that the current system is objectively better. It's that scale and convenience created network effects that make it "essential" in practice, even if it’s buggy, slow, or worse in some respects.

ranger_danger 1y ago

It's basically the "Oh no! Anyway..." Clarkson meme.

mouse_ 1y ago

The problem isn't that OpenAI is big news. The problem is that OpenAI currently appears to be worth more than AirBNB, Coinbase, Uber and Lyft combined, and Sam would have you believe this is still AI's "early stage". How much more liquidity is even left for this thing to soak up?

coffeecoders 1y ago
Yeah, the valuations are crazy, but think about it this way: the app economy and gig economy seemed absurdly speculative at first too. And now they’re worth trillions. Early stage hype overshoots, sure, but sometimes it’s just pricing in things the old frameworks can’t even model yet.

AlexandrB 1y ago

Airbnb and Uber are shit in 2025. They're basically no better than what they were trying to replace. "The arc" you describe is people saying that these products aren't a magical solution that prints money and being proven right as the products are worn down to the level of the thing they were trying to disrupt by market forces. Uber, in particular, drives me nuts because we replaced a supposedly powerful and evil taxi cartel (which happened to be a bunch of small, regional businesses) with a huge multinational corporation. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

coffeecoders 1y ago
Totally get the frustration. Uber and Airbnb definitely have their flaws. But the sheer scale of users (200M last I checked) shows that a product can be both polarizing and essential at the same time. Kind of like how we’re seeing with LLMs: not perfect, often overhyped, but undeniably useful at scale.
- lomase 1y ago
  Taxis and housing existed and where more afordable before those companies took over the market. If I make a company buy every hospital in the world you will think is essential, but is not. The hospitals did exist before.
  - coffeecoders 1y ago
    Convenience, consistency, and global. They solved real pain points, even if the cost and ethics are now questionable. It’s like a software library that’s buggy and bloated but everyone depends on it because rewriting it from scratch is harder than dealing with its flaws.
    - lomase 1y ago
      You start from a false premise, that we have now is better than before. Taxis were better than Ubers, bed&breakfast were better than AirBnB. Maybe you are just too young to know it. The only reason we moved to Uber is because it was half the price of taxis, because it was subsidized, not anymore.
      - coffeecoders 1y ago
        Uber and Airbnb solved real pain points: global availability, predictable, nice interfaces, cashless payments, reviews etc. These are the things small, local systems struggled to provide consistently. Also, my point isn't that the current system is objectively better. It's that scale and convenience created network effects that make it "essential" in practice, even if it’s buggy, slow, or worse in some respects.