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And a lot of the gains from the Dotcom boom are being paid back in negative value for the average person at this point. We have automated systems that waste ou

And a lot of the gains from the Dotcom boom are being paid back in negative value for the average person at this point. We have automated systems that waste our time when we need support, product features that should have a one-time-cost being turned into subscriptions, a complete usurping of the ability to distribute software or build compatible replacements, etc.. The Dotcom boom was probably good for everyone in some way, but it was much, much better for the extremely wealthy people that have gained control of everything.

actionfromafar 1y ago
Don’t say that, you’ll hasten the Antichrist!
- Terr_ 1y ago
  (For those who missed it: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/785407/peter-thiel-antichrist-tech-regulation https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/785407/p... )
hattmall 1y ago
AI itself is a manifestation of that too, a huge time waster for a lot of people. Getting randomly generated wrong but sounding right information is very frustrating. Start asking AI questions you already know the answer too and the issues can become very obvious.
xmprt 1y ago
If you're ever been to a third world country then you'd see how this is completely untrue. The dotcom boom has revolutionized the way of life for people in countries like India. Even for the average person in America, the ability to do so many activities online that would have taken hours otherwise (eg. shopping, research, DMV/government activities, etc). The fact that we see negative consequences of this like social network polarization or brainrot doesn't negate the positives that have been brought about.
- adityaathalye 1y ago
  With telecom, we benefited from skipping generations. I got into a telecom management program because in 2001-ish, I was passed by on a village street by a farmer bicycling while talking on his cellphone. Mind you my family could not afford cellphone call rates at the time. In fact, the technology was introduced out here assuming corporate / elite users. The market reality became such that telcos were forced kicking and screaming to open up networks to everybody. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (back then) mandated rural <> urban parity of sorts. This eventually forced telcos to share infrastructure costs (share towers etc.) The total call and data volumes are eye-watering, but low-yield (low ARPU). I could go on and on but it's just batshit crazy. Now UPI has layered on top of that---once again, benefiting from Reserve Bank of India's mandate for zero-fee transactions, and participating via a formal data interchange protocol and format. Speaking from India, having lived here all my life, and occasionally travelled abroad (USAmerica, S.E. Asia). We, as a society and democracy, are also feeling the harsh, harsh hand of "Code is Law", and increasingly centralised control of communication utilities (which the telecoms are). The left hand of darkness comes with a lot of darkness, sadly. Which brings me to the moniker of "third world". This place is insane, my friend --- first, second, third, and fourth worlds all smashing into each others' faces all the time. In so many ways, we are more first world here than many western countries. I first visited USAmerica in 2015, and I could almost smell an empire in decline. Walking across twitter headquarters in downtown SF of all the places, avoiding needles and syringes strewn on the sidewalk, and avoiding the completely smashed guy just barely standing there, right there in the middle of it all. That was insane.
  - yugioh3 1y ago
    That kind of extreme poverty juxtaposed to extreme wealth, and all of the social ills that come along with it, have always been a fixture of the American experience. I don’t think it’s a good barometer or whether the USA is in decline when there has long been pockets of urban decay, massive inequality, drug use etc. Jump back to any point in American history and you’ll find something similar if not much, much worse. Even in SF of all places, back in the wild west era gold rush or in the 1970s… America has always held that contradiction.
visarga 1y ago
> The Dotcom boom was probably good for everyone in some way, but it was much, much better for the extremely wealthy people that have gained control of everything. You are describing platform capture. Be it Google Search, YouTube, TikTok, Meta, X, App Store, Play Store, Amazon, Uber - they have all made themselves intermediaries between public and services, extracting a huge fee. I see it like rent going up in a region until it reaches maximum bearable level, making it almost not worth it to live and work there. They extract value both directions, up and down, like ISPs without net-neutrality. But AI has a different dynamic, it is not easy to centrally control ranking, filtering and UI with AI agents. You can download a LLM, can't download a Google or Meta. Now it is AI agents that got the "ear" of the user base. It's not like before it was good - we had a generation of people writing slop to grab attention on web and social networks, from the lowest porn site to CNN. We all got prompted by the Algorithm. Now that Algorithms is replaced by many AI agents that serve users more directly than before.
- thfuran 1y ago
  >You can download a LLM, can't download a Google or Meta. You can download a model. That doesn't necessarily mean you can download the best model and all the ancillary systems attached to it by whatever service. Just like you can download a web index but you probably cannot download google's index and certainly can't download their system of crawlers for keeping it up to date.
throwzasdf 1y ago
I know HN and most younger people or people with otherwise political leanings always push narratives pointing at rich people bad but I feel a lot of tech has made our lives easier and better. It's also made it more complicated and worse in some ways. That effect has applied to everyone. In poor countries, they may not have access to clean running water but it's almost guaranteed they have cell phones. We saw that in a documentary recently. What's good about that? They use cell phones not only to stay in touch but to carry out small business and personal sales. Something that wouldn't have been possible before the Internet age.

actionfromafar 1y ago

Don’t say that, you’ll hasten the Antichrist!

Terr_ 1y ago
(For those who missed it: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/785407/peter-thiel-antichrist-tech-regulation https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/785407/p... )

hattmall 1y ago

AI itself is a manifestation of that too, a huge time waster for a lot of people. Getting randomly generated wrong but sounding right information is very frustrating. Start asking AI questions you already know the answer too and the issues can become very obvious.

xmprt 1y ago

If you're ever been to a third world country then you'd see how this is completely untrue. The dotcom boom has revolutionized the way of life for people in countries like India. Even for the average person in America, the ability to do so many activities online that would have taken hours otherwise (eg. shopping, research, DMV/government activities, etc). The fact that we see negative consequences of this like social network polarization or brainrot doesn't negate the positives that have been brought about.

adityaathalye 1y ago
With telecom, we benefited from skipping generations. I got into a telecom management program because in 2001-ish, I was passed by on a village street by a farmer bicycling while talking on his cellphone. Mind you my family could not afford cellphone call rates at the time. In fact, the technology was introduced out here assuming corporate / elite users. The market reality became such that telcos were forced kicking and screaming to open up networks to everybody. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (back then) mandated rural <> urban parity of sorts. This eventually forced telcos to share infrastructure costs (share towers etc.) The total call and data volumes are eye-watering, but low-yield (low ARPU). I could go on and on but it's just batshit crazy. Now UPI has layered on top of that---once again, benefiting from Reserve Bank of India's mandate for zero-fee transactions, and participating via a formal data interchange protocol and format. Speaking from India, having lived here all my life, and occasionally travelled abroad (USAmerica, S.E. Asia). We, as a society and democracy, are also feeling the harsh, harsh hand of "Code is Law", and increasingly centralised control of communication utilities (which the telecoms are). The left hand of darkness comes with a lot of darkness, sadly. Which brings me to the moniker of "third world". This place is insane, my friend --- first, second, third, and fourth worlds all smashing into each others' faces all the time. In so many ways, we are more first world here than many western countries. I first visited USAmerica in 2015, and I could almost smell an empire in decline. Walking across twitter headquarters in downtown SF of all the places, avoiding needles and syringes strewn on the sidewalk, and avoiding the completely smashed guy just barely standing there, right there in the middle of it all. That was insane.
- yugioh3 1y ago
  That kind of extreme poverty juxtaposed to extreme wealth, and all of the social ills that come along with it, have always been a fixture of the American experience. I don’t think it’s a good barometer or whether the USA is in decline when there has long been pockets of urban decay, massive inequality, drug use etc. Jump back to any point in American history and you’ll find something similar if not much, much worse. Even in SF of all places, back in the wild west era gold rush or in the 1970s… America has always held that contradiction.

visarga 1y ago

> The Dotcom boom was probably good for everyone in some way, but it was much, much better for the extremely wealthy people that have gained control of everything. You are describing platform capture. Be it Google Search, YouTube, TikTok, Meta, X, App Store, Play Store, Amazon, Uber - they have all made themselves intermediaries between public and services, extracting a huge fee. I see it like rent going up in a region until it reaches maximum bearable level, making it almost not worth it to live and work there. They extract value both directions, up and down, like ISPs without net-neutrality. But AI has a different dynamic, it is not easy to centrally control ranking, filtering and UI with AI agents. You can download a LLM, can't download a Google or Meta. Now it is AI agents that got the "ear" of the user base. It's not like before it was good - we had a generation of people writing slop to grab attention on web and social networks, from the lowest porn site to CNN. We all got prompted by the Algorithm. Now that Algorithms is replaced by many AI agents that serve users more directly than before.

thfuran 1y ago
>You can download a LLM, can't download a Google or Meta. You can download a model. That doesn't necessarily mean you can download the best model and all the ancillary systems attached to it by whatever service. Just like you can download a web index but you probably cannot download google's index and certainly can't download their system of crawlers for keeping it up to date.

throwzasdf 1y ago

I know HN and most younger people or people with otherwise political leanings always push narratives pointing at rich people bad but I feel a lot of tech has made our lives easier and better. It's also made it more complicated and worse in some ways. That effect has applied to everyone. In poor countries, they may not have access to clean running water but it's almost guaranteed they have cell phones. We saw that in a documentary recently. What's good about that? They use cell phones not only to stay in touch but to carry out small business and personal sales. Something that wouldn't have been possible before the Internet age.