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| Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions? | ||
| recommended by 2 users | 2010 | 75 points by DanielBMarkham | predictions | original thread | | ||
Since everybody is talking about predictions for 2010, I thought I would bump it up a notch. Anybody care to make some predictions about what we'll see in the coming decade (2010-2019)? I'll try a couple. - Major changes will happen in Iran, one way or the other. The current trajectory they are on does not seem sustainable for a decade. - Ubiquitous computing will finally arrive, with smart cards/RFID on our bodies seamlessly interacting with computers in our environment. As you walk up to your refrigerator, for instance, you're logged in and presented with a customized display. Same goes for the car or the entertainment surface at the Dentist's. - Flat panel displays will not drop to rock-bottom. Instead, a new generation of 2160 and 3240p 3-D panels will appear for consumer setting. Rock-bottom 10-20 inch panels will stabilize in the 50-100 range and stay there. Sorry, no panel/OLED wallpaper, at least not cheaply in the coming decade. You guys have any? | ||
| 2 users recommended this thread. What they said: |
| codegeek Dec 16, 2019 | on: Ask HN: Predictions for 2020 and the New Decade? | context |
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tedsanders Aug 14, 2022 | on: Hacker News Predictions | context
In 2010, Daniel B. Markham asked a question to the users of HackerNews, “A New Decade. Any Predictions?”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025681 189 comments were posted in the thread. Their predictions included: - Ubiquitous mobile internet integrated into even very trivial consumer goods - Ebooks defeating real books - Rampant piracy - Common electric cars - Driverless cars - China bubble will burst - Google will go downhill - Microsoft will become like IBM and have to sell off parts of the business - Smartphones & cloud computing will make PCs redundant for most people Of all these 9 predictions, I'd say first 8 were mostly false and the 9th was correct in spirit but still iffy in fact - Statista says that 3/4 of American adults own a computer. In general, there seems to be a severe bias toward change. Either people were very optimistic about the changes we’d see by 2020 or they were quite pessimistic about the present trends & companies, calling them bubbles or unsustainable. In both cases, a prediction of "trends will stay the same" would have been more accurate than a prediction of "things will change drastically off-trend". That said, it's a bit unfair to say that stasis/current trends continue is a better prediction, as it has the advantage of entropy. There is only one way for things to stay the same, but many ways for them to change. So even if things are likely to change, predicting stasis can still outperform any specific prediction of change, even if a prediction of any change would be best. Here’s what actually changed over the 2010s, as I see it. HARDWARE - Phones got way better and changed the face of modern human life. - 3D TVs fizzled. - VR has fizzled so far. - AR fizzled. - CPUs improved, but more slowly. - HDDs improved, but more slowly. - SSDs got cheap. - Displays got way cheaper. - Cars got better infotainment systems and other features, but never drove themselves. - Wireless power didn’t happen. - Mesh networks didn’t happen. - Ultra cheap RFID didn’t happen. - Robots didn’t happen. - Telerobots didn’t happen. - Drone delivery didn’t happen. - Flexible electronics didn’t happen. - Nanotechnology didn’t really happen. - Graphene didn’t happen. - Ubiquitous computing didn’t happen. - Non-silicon based solar didn’t happen. - Silicon solar costs plummeted and installations went gangbusters. - Wearable electronics didn’t happen, except for smart watches. - eReaders grew. - FPGAs never took off. - Chips are still mostly silicon. - The top CPU makers are still Intel and AMD. - The top GPU makers are still NVIDIA and AMD. - The top video game console makers are still Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft. - Home internet remained mostly cable, not fiber. - Computers remained x86, phones remained ARM. SOFTWARE - The dominant search engine is still Google. - The dominant computer operating systems are still Windows and Mac OS. - The dominant phone operating systems are still Android and iOS. - The top video streaming site is still YouTube. - The top map site is still Google Maps. - The dominant office software is still Microsoft Office. - The dominant social network is still Facebook. - The top online retailer is still Amazon. - The top cloud provider is still AWS. - Internet Explorer died, and Chrome grew in share. - Websites are lot better and slicker. - Phone apps got way, way better. - Cryptocurrencies didn’t take off. - MMOs didn’t take off. - Web anonymization didn’t happen. - Web identity didn’t happen. - Malware still exists. - Spam still exists. - Lag still exists. - Functional programming didn’t take off. - Telepresence didn’t take off. - Mass outsourcing of software jobs didn’t happen. - Linux didn’t take off. - Prediction markets didn’t happen - Dynamic pricing didn’t really happen. - Micropayments didn’t really happen. - Most of what was growing in 2010 continued to grow, most of what was shrinking in 2010 continued to shrink. Some things changed, but most stayed on trend. |
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My bottomline prediction: World won't change as fast as we always predict. Case in point [0] the prediction a decade ago on HN. Most of the items on that page are way off but precisely the reason why it is so hard to predict the future.
If I do have to add my guesses, I would say that:
- AI/ML hype will fade off and won't really be as mainstream as we want it be right now.
- Crypto currency will still not be mainstream.
- We will have driverless cars but not mainstream yet. Trucking jobs in the US won't go away as Andrew Yang is predicting them to be.
- China and may be even India (due to sheer size and open markets) to an extent will further become more important in World Affairs and US will continue to lose it superpower status even though US will still be very significant overall.
- Mainstream news outlets on TV will keep becoming less important as Indie Media outlets on youtube will become more mainstream. Looking at you CNN/MSNBC/FOX news etc.
- Gig economy will become more prevalent. A lot of people will start doing their own thing since they cannot find traditional jobs. Not always tech. related but freelance industry will grow even further.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025681