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The premise of this article indicated a massive lack of research or forethought. The author is absolutely confusing "what exists" with "what is readily made com

The premise of this article indicated a massive lack of research or forethought. The author is absolutely confusing "what exists" with "what is readily made commercially available to the public". A few hours of browsing tech blogs would make it very clear how many significant advances are made. He talks about Blu-Ray like it's cutting edge. Meanwhile we have companies putting out 3D TV sets this year. Digital cameras really can't get any better? Last time I checked, there still aren't any small, inexpensive consumer 3D data acquisition devices yet. And the jump from dial-up to broadband is no bigger than the jump from our anemic 6-8MB connections to the 1GB/s service that Korea is building out as we speak. The title of this should really be, "Why don't people realize that our tech still sucks?"

10ren 18y ago
With respect, the article's point is not that tech can't improve, but that those improvements aren't needed. His expression "good enough" means "good enough for a particular purpose". Sure it can be improved; but it doesn't matter because it's good enough. Consider his example of netbooks: less powerful but more demand. You're taking improvement in technology; he's talking demand for that improvement. Sure, you can make a car that will do 200mph - and what's the market for that? How about a car that uses less fuel, has crumple zones and airbags, easier to park, looks cool, feels great to drive, accelerates well and has seats that smell like leather? You can buy an 8 inch hard disk drive with a hugely larger capacity than a 3.5 inch one you have, and that is also cheaper per GB. But you don't buy the 8 inch one, because the smaller drives have enough capacity for your needs: they are "good enough". Because of lower fixed costs, they are also cheaper (for that capacity). And they'll fit in your laptop. I concede that the expression "good enough" is misleading. He's using it in the sense of "The Innovators Dilemma". It's the basis of each disruptive revolution in computers, and it takes almost everyone by surprise. We keep on improving aspect X, and everyone loves it! Until one day, they stop buying it. How come? I don't know, let's just make X even better! The idea is that people buy something based on a mix of benefits, things like features, performance, reliability, convenience, and price. Saying that one of these attributes is not "good enough", is a way of saying that "there is demand for more of it". The vendor who can supply the best improvement, in terms of the current mix of demand, wins. It's usually seen as one key benefit, and the rest are secondary. That's where the competition is focussed. And this keeps on going for years, decades. Everybody works at improving that aspect, because people demand more of it. But if it eventually saturates the demand for it, people can't use a faster car, they can't absorb more capacity: it finally is "good enough". This is another way of saying that there is now demand for more of some other attribute instead of that one. And competition shifts to that attribute. This plays out all the time in technology markets: e.g. once it's fast enough for their needs, people prefer to buy something cheaper instead of faster. Sure, it can be faster, but that's irrelevant if no one wants it. Fortunately, the demand doesn't usually disappear, but switches to somewhere else, so there is still demand for tech improvements - just different ones.
Confusion 18y ago
However, you are confusing 'what will become available' with 'what consumers will buy when it becomes available'. The author doesn't say nothing 'better' will become available. He is claiming that consumers may not buy it, because the advantage of the new product over the old one is minimal. He is, in effect, claiming that many more current R&D efforts will, in the near future, turn out to be bad investments. When purchasing a new product, the perceived advantage is always weighed against its additional cost, having to let go of something one 'is familiar with', backward compatability with other possessions that are retained, etc. If the manufacturer does not succeed in convincing consumers that there is something to be gained by 'upgrading', they will not upgrade. Now I concede that, at the moment, you are probably right: lots of new and improved technologies that will hit the markets the next ten years will be perceived as having sufficient advantage (to replace currently owned products) and they will be purchased. However, in the long run, I think there must come a point when the author's argument will turn out to be valid. That's when new technologies just do not offer enough advantage to be profitable in the consumer market. Of course, every technology faces this problem at some point: it reaches a stable end-of-life fase and manufacturers deal with it in various ways. Some old types of CPU, radio's and the lightbulb are interesting case studies. The main question is whether there will come a point when this holds for the majority of technological innovations, in such a way that the consumer market for 'new' products vanishes all across the 'technological' consumer product market.
- swombat 18y ago
  It may well happen that some day, technological development stalls and no one needs anything anymore from technology. However, that day will be the day when no one on Earth has any problems anymore, because technology is used to solve problems. That may happen if we destroy ourselves, or if we reach a peak of technological achievement such that we are effectively gods. I hope the former won't happen in my lifetime, and I suspect we'll have to wait a while for the latter.
- manvsmachine 18y ago
  Point taken; however, if that is the argument that he is trying to make, it is not made very clearly and the title is misleading. There is a subtle but very distinct difference between "What is out is not significantly better" and "What is out is significantly better but not cheap/prevalent/simple enough for me to buy it". Because, yes, what exists now is more than good enough for people who don't particularly like or use tech. Yes, some people still use Win95, but to say that Win 7 is the same thing with "a few shiny baubles" is laughable. As far as long-term effects are concerned, there may be a time when we decide that there's not much left to do, but I'm willing to bet that it's not anytime even remotely soon. A lot of people have been impressed or overwhelmed by the things we achieved during the 90's and 00's; their kids won't be. Looking at some of the areas from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569103 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569103, you can see how far we have yet to go.

10ren 18y ago

With respect, the article's point is not that tech can't improve, but that those improvements aren't needed. His expression "good enough" means "good enough for a particular purpose". Sure it can be improved; but it doesn't matter because it's good enough. Consider his example of netbooks: less powerful but more demand. You're taking improvement in technology; he's talking demand for that improvement. Sure, you can make a car that will do 200mph - and what's the market for that? How about a car that uses less fuel, has crumple zones and airbags, easier to park, looks cool, feels great to drive, accelerates well and has seats that smell like leather? You can buy an 8 inch hard disk drive with a hugely larger capacity than a 3.5 inch one you have, and that is also cheaper per GB. But you don't buy the 8 inch one, because the smaller drives have enough capacity for your needs: they are "good enough". Because of lower fixed costs, they are also cheaper (for that capacity). And they'll fit in your laptop. I concede that the expression "good enough" is misleading. He's using it in the sense of "The Innovators Dilemma". It's the basis of each disruptive revolution in computers, and it takes almost everyone by surprise. We keep on improving aspect X, and everyone loves it! Until one day, they stop buying it. How come? I don't know, let's just make X even better! The idea is that people buy something based on a mix of benefits, things like features, performance, reliability, convenience, and price. Saying that one of these attributes is not "good enough", is a way of saying that "there is demand for more of it". The vendor who can supply the best improvement, in terms of the current mix of demand, wins. It's usually seen as one key benefit, and the rest are secondary. That's where the competition is focussed. And this keeps on going for years, decades. Everybody works at improving that aspect, because people demand more of it. But if it eventually saturates the demand for it, people can't use a faster car, they can't absorb more capacity: it finally is "good enough". This is another way of saying that there is now demand for more of some other attribute instead of that one. And competition shifts to that attribute. This plays out all the time in technology markets: e.g. once it's fast enough for their needs, people prefer to buy something cheaper instead of faster. Sure, it can be faster, but that's irrelevant if no one wants it. Fortunately, the demand doesn't usually disappear, but switches to somewhere else, so there is still demand for tech improvements - just different ones.

Confusion 18y ago

However, you are confusing 'what will become available' with 'what consumers will buy when it becomes available'. The author doesn't say nothing 'better' will become available. He is claiming that consumers may not buy it, because the advantage of the new product over the old one is minimal. He is, in effect, claiming that many more current R&D efforts will, in the near future, turn out to be bad investments. When purchasing a new product, the perceived advantage is always weighed against its additional cost, having to let go of something one 'is familiar with', backward compatability with other possessions that are retained, etc. If the manufacturer does not succeed in convincing consumers that there is something to be gained by 'upgrading', they will not upgrade. Now I concede that, at the moment, you are probably right: lots of new and improved technologies that will hit the markets the next ten years will be perceived as having sufficient advantage (to replace currently owned products) and they will be purchased. However, in the long run, I think there must come a point when the author's argument will turn out to be valid. That's when new technologies just do not offer enough advantage to be profitable in the consumer market. Of course, every technology faces this problem at some point: it reaches a stable end-of-life fase and manufacturers deal with it in various ways. Some old types of CPU, radio's and the lightbulb are interesting case studies. The main question is whether there will come a point when this holds for the majority of technological innovations, in such a way that the consumer market for 'new' products vanishes all across the 'technological' consumer product market.

swombat 18y ago
It may well happen that some day, technological development stalls and no one needs anything anymore from technology. However, that day will be the day when no one on Earth has any problems anymore, because technology is used to solve problems. That may happen if we destroy ourselves, or if we reach a peak of technological achievement such that we are effectively gods. I hope the former won't happen in my lifetime, and I suspect we'll have to wait a while for the latter.
manvsmachine 18y ago
Point taken; however, if that is the argument that he is trying to make, it is not made very clearly and the title is misleading. There is a subtle but very distinct difference between "What is out is not significantly better" and "What is out is significantly better but not cheap/prevalent/simple enough for me to buy it". Because, yes, what exists now is more than good enough for people who don't particularly like or use tech. Yes, some people still use Win95, but to say that Win 7 is the same thing with "a few shiny baubles" is laughable. As far as long-term effects are concerned, there may be a time when we decide that there's not much left to do, but I'm willing to bet that it's not anytime even remotely soon. A lot of people have been impressed or overwhelmed by the things we achieved during the 90's and 00's; their kids won't be. Looking at some of the areas from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569103 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=569103, you can see how far we have yet to go.