If you want to make a new prediction, a new thread has gotten started: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21941278.
- Bitcoin would become the decade's best investment by far
- the President of the US would conduct foreign policy through Twitter
- electric scooters would become a billion dollar business (Bird, Lime, etc.)
- the sharing economy would threaten the taxi and hotel industries (AirBNB and Uber)
- escalation of school shootings
- the explosive growth of quantitative easing
- negative nominal interest rates on sovereign debt
- revelations of mass surveillance by the US government
- streaming video services would begin to produce content rivaling major studios in quality
- Amazon would become the everything company
- DNA testing would become a major recreational activity with numerous judicial and social implications
- the US would approach energy independence, driven largely by a boom in oil extraction technologies
Also interesting to consider how all of these ideas would have seemed more or less ludicrous in 2010.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1027093
And surprisingly the WoW one is the most off :D
- Apple and Google are still the only two mobile operating systems that matter and they are still in relatively the same position. iOS still controls the high end where the money is and Android has the market share but the OEMs are not making any money.
- Facebook is more profitable and popular.
- Amazon is still the number one online retailer, the Kindle is still by far the most popular ereader but more importantly, the Kindle platform is still dominant.
- Google still hasn’t managed to diversify from its ad business and YouTube is still dominant for video.
- Netflix is still the dominant streaming platform.
- Microsoft is doing better than ever.
> I predict lots of people will make predictions, but we'll never go back to check and see if they were right.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025703
This poster saw it.
> I predict (and hope for) a major turn back to simplicity in technologies. Multimillion-line software will go extinct like dinosaurs. Existing programming languages and platforms will gradually be replaced with ones so simple and elegant that one software component will be written and maintained by one to three developers and art designers and not a whole software company packed with managers and other unnecessary staff. Oh, and managers along with poeple who "understand" "software business" but not software will hopefully go extinct too.
If I can predict anything for 2030 based on this, it will be software being even more complex, with even more frameworks and abstractions.
That one strikes a certain chord..
>adw on Jan 1, 2010 [-]
>Network analysis and data mining will claim their first major political scalp.
>That'll be a watershed moment: the politics of information are going to start being the kind of core liberal issue that environmental issues currently are.
Unfortunately, both of these were spot-on.
Glad this didn't happen. Also it's weird to me to equate functional & dynamic like that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025709
Didn't happen! Kudos to @dang and the HN staff for keeping the site going for a decade !!
> Internecine fighting erupts amongst the software clans over whether certain symbols are separating or terminating and whether or not the name of the god of modification is spelled with two letters or five. The dehumanized masses turn on the dithering software clans and their IT crowd supporters, demanding to have their souls restored from failed exchange, facebook, gmail, and twitter servers. A small nomadic clan clad in denim and mock turtlenecks seeks the legendary Cupertino Stone in the wasteland of New Gorgoroth (mostly between the 85 and the 280), but finds only the unpublished "Objectivist-C Manifesto" and shiny discs inscribed "Dylan DR1".
"
Edit: if there is a way to work Elon Musk in there somewhere that would be good, I have a feeling he's going to make some big waves in the next 10 years but I haven't a clue how.
"
yeah
Sad, but accurate.
http://nautil.us/issue/65/in-plain-sight/why-futurism-has-a-...
it has something special somehow, I always come back to it
ctrl+f "bitcoin" returns 0 results.
Disruptive ideas take humanity by a storm few people believe it's coming, the rest can only connect the dots looking backwards.
> Also, this decade sees the beginning of the "pension bomb" - the demographic bulge of post-war baby boomers crossing the threshold into retirement. It's fairly easy to predict that there will be pensions scandals, with some pensions companies going bust or paying out far less to recipients than had been originally advertised. Also I predict the beginning of large supermarket scale retirement homes/complexes/compounds, where economies of scale can reduce costs of elder care.
Both predictions were 100% correct. Many pensions were cut dramatically or eliminated. AMR is one that comes to mind immediately, but the pension benefit corp could only do so much for many others. Also, this problem now seems like an imminent problem for many companies and public entities. This is only going to get worse.
The Villages in Ocala, FL fit the second point, and I'm confident other places exist like it.
What changed in tech from 2010 to 2020? My take below.
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. T Dynamic pricing didn't really happen. Drone delivery didn't happen. Flexible electronics didn't happen. Nanotechnology didn't really happen. Graphene didn't happen. Ubiquitious 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. Remote work didn't take off. Mass outsourcing of software jobs didn't happen. Linux didn't take off. Prediction markets didn't happen. Video calls didn't really take off, but they happen. Most of what was growing in 2010 continued to grow, most of what was shrinking in 2010 continued to shrink.
What else happened? What narratives do you construct?
But one recurring prediction that was notably wrong was of Microsoft's declining prospects. It would have been difficult at the time to argue otherwise, but WOW did things turn out differently.
Not an image search engine as much as whole governments but this rings eerily true.
By itself hardly a bold prediction, but the top reply makes a caveat about mobile devices, which gets some nods about mobile taking much longer to transition to 64-bit.
Few might have imagined Apple would ship its first 64-bit phone only three years later, and a version of iOS before the decade was over that ended support for 32-bit phones!
I'm glad that this remains mostly false (as well as "all high street bookstores go bust"). Sure, you can get a wi-fi enabled toaster or coffeepot, but the basic versions are still available for sale.
I chose to live without wi-fi at home, and with no smartphone, for the past four months -- just to see how my life went without the distraction. Now the experiment has run its course, and I plan to order wifi again. But basically life went on as normal, and I feel I could do another four months if I chose.
I wonder for how long into the future such a choice will remain realistic.
I don't think there will be any notable advancements in science: we won't create AI, we won't cure cancer and we won't switch to electric cars.
Iran will Change : I’ll call it NO
RFID-Everything : Basically NO… not in consumer-land, at least
Cheap Flat Panel Displays : YES
Ubiquitous & Wireless/Mobile: YES
Ebooks Take Over & Pirates Win: NO. Surprisingly, the opposite happened. monolithic legal markets did really well.
Electric Cars Event Horizon: ALMOST
Driverless Cars Go Live: NO.
Still No Fusion Power: CORRECT
MSFT Declines: NO
Chinese Bubble Burst: NO
Lady Gaga is New Madonna: Yes. Good call!
Google will Change for Worst: CORRECT on the moral point. INCORRECT on the financial one
Pension Bomb Problems: No
Habitable Planet Found: PROBABLY, but we don’t know which one it was.
Data Mining Political Watershed: YES.
Some of the people championing doomsday scenarios ought to be humbled by the reality of not being able to predict almost anything ten years out.
Until someone invents a real crystal ball...
In the context of 2009, Microsoft was obviously in disarray and most would just accelerate a current trend to make a prediction.
Turns out many important changes in the decade were not predictable that way (although it applies for the success of the smartphone in several comments too).
My guess is full self driving on high ways by 2030 with some semi-autonomous trucks. Removing a driver won’t happen until 2040-50.
A few of them are correct (cheapish high density displays, commercially successful ebook readers, self-driving cars) but most are terribly inaccurate.
Left the same comment but with some fun, probably wrong predictions, over on the other post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21941512.
There was no year zero.
There are some African countries richer than Eastern European countries.
This sucks...
>>Probably the best prediction I've read on this thread.
Once the tech becomes good enough, it'll no longer make sense to own all these devices.
Wow. Nailed it.
> Facebook will be gone in 5 years, just like MySpace. Half a dozen companies will rise and fall in replacing it. The web will churn even faster than it did before. [1]
Love the reply to this one. "Probably the best prediction I've read on this thread." [2]
There's also [3]:
> * During the second half of the decade, the Chinese bubble will burst. This will be a quite heavy shock. A lot of people will lose a lot of money. A younger/more populist group of politicians will assume power in China.
> * Functional programming / dynamic languages will go out of fashion. People still using them will be judged as incompetent programmers by the people who moved on to the new fashionable programming paradigm(s). At the same time, huge corporations will embrace functional programming / dynamic languages and third world universities will start focusing on them in their courses.
> * Lady Gaga will be the new Madonna.
To be honest I don't know about pop to know if this is true, but it sounds to me like Katy Perry might've out-Madonna'd Gaga.
Even the original post has some that didn't turn out as expected:
> - Major changes will happen in Iran, one way or the other. The current trajectory they are on does not seem sustainable for a decade.
Little did they know, yes? Kind of, after the election of Hassan Rouhani and an eventual nuclear deal, although that particular milestone would be scrapped after a big change in government happened in the USA.
> - 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.
Little did they know at the end of the decade this would be DOA after a series of scandals made people realize maybe privacy is way more important than logging into your refrigerator with a customized display. Also, as it turns out, dentist equipment churn, at least where I'm from, is incredibly slow and still lacking an "entertainment surface" beyond maybe a TV if you're lucky.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1027153
The "decade" timeline doesn't quite fit but to be honest this wasn't a bad prediction [1].
> Facebook will be the Google of the decade.
This feels very accurate, down to the people. There's plenty of ex-Googlers at Facebook, including Sheryl Sandberg, who essentially built Facebook from "a really cool site" to the profitable ad business it is now.
Google bought YouTube in 2006, and now it's a huge economy of content creators. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, and it's now a growing economy of influencers. There's plenty of differences of course, but in the ad-tech space it's Google then Facebook, in Machine Learning it's Google and Facebook. What big companies are releasing cool open source software, adopted by millions of developers? Google and Facebook.
Miss-information, hate speech, political controversy and issues with publishers? Facebook and Google/YouTube. In terms of data-tracking only Google is comparable to Facebook— or rather only Facebook is comparable to Google? Virtually complete dominance of a key-part of the web? Google and Facebook. Number of users? I could argue only Android and Facebook are at point where they have to provide free internet to people to gain more users. Diversification into hardware? First Google, then Facebook.
The list goes on. Facebook is (perhaps too ruthlessly, and "breaking too many things") largely another "Google" in many ways. Not sure if this is what the prediction was getting at, but it's interesting to think about.
> Google will be the Microsoft of the decade.
Right now it feels like this is happening. Right now, Google is ubiquitous and feels unbeatable like Microsoft. It also has (1) platform dominance in web and OS and key services, (2) an incredibly diverse set of products and (3) anti-competitive behavior stemming from this dominance. It also has (4) a thick layer of middle-management fighting for relevance leading to (5) lots of product churn, worsened by (6) lack of focus due a "vision" vacuum in upper-management.
I'd suspect the next few years without Page or Brin will be interesting. It'll also be interesting to see if Google 1. Can pull of hardware (Pixel was a good start, but the latest iteration has a lot of reviewers disappointed) 2. Can focus (Android, Chrome OS or Fuchsia? Will they commit to a messaging service?) and 3. Can deliver new products that stick.
> Microsoft will be the IBM of the decade.
Up until Satya Nadella took over in 2014 and his changes started materializing later in the decade this largely sounded like it was the case— old stagnant company, held mostly by slow-to-change enterprise customers, and little in the way of new products.
It's not wrong. But I guess he didn't foresee the Internet of Useless Shit. It matters if you tablet doesn't work without Internet, but doesn't matter if it's your refrigerator, or so we hope.
> Electric cars become fairly common. A destructive feedback loop starts for gasoline fuel: lower demand, lower profit, vendors go bust, less availability, monopoly prices, lower desirability. The gasoline economy is brittle because it has high fixed costs, a complex supply chain, and its power source isn't fungible. As with film versus digital cameras, the result is an exponential crash in the desirability of gasoline cars
Exponential crash? Didn't see it yet.
> Driverless cars will appear. As they move down from the high end to the mainstream, they'll make taxis cheap enough that private car ownership starts to become quaint. Eventually, driving your own car will be considered selfish risk-taking, and banned on public roads.
Not yet.
> DrJokepu on Jan 1, 2010: Still no fusion power.
Haha!
> During the second half of the decade, the Chinese bubble will burst. This will be a quite heavy shock. A lot of people will lose a lot of money. A younger/more populist group of politicians will assume power in China.
The unsustainable early economic growth has came to an end and there was an economic crisis, but there was never a major "burst". And the power was not assumed by a younger group, but a more conservative group. Not sure if's populist or not though.
> Hugo Chavez & his friends will be removed from power in Venezuela.
Still not completely fulfilled, but probably soon.
> Google will experience change in management. From there, it will be downhill for them (at least for the rest of the decade).
Accurate?
> Surprisingly enough, Apple will still stay relevant even though Steve Jobs will have to leave his position due to health problems or something else.
Accurate!
> adw on Jan 1, 2010: Network analysis and data mining will claim their first major political scalp. That'll be a watershed moment: the politics of information are going to start being the kind of core liberal issue that environmental issues currently are.
Accurate.
> jacquesm on Jan 1, 2010: [...] the end of 32 bit computing for consumer pcs and server platforms. So all mainstream machines not being mobile or embedded devices will be 64 bits by the end of the decade (and plenty of those will be too, but you are right, not all of them).
Accurate.
> artagnon on Jan 1, 2010: [...] 3. By 2020, Chrome and Firefox each have 35% market share. Internet Explorer becomes insignificant.
It's wrong, it's more like Chrome has 66% and Firefox has 33% (just an example, the "real" number shows Firefox's market share is even less than that). While the death of Internet Explorer was certain, it was hard to imagine that Google Chrome would be a monopoly.
----- Winners:
'icefox https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026549
ChromeOS. Based on Linux kernel. Entirely different security system/deployment/upgrades, no legacy applications.
3/3 percentage correct: 100%
'jaquesm https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025696
Pretty sure all are correct, though can't find statistics for the first on hand.
5/5 percentage correct: 100%
'jacquesm https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025709
laarc, though laarc failed.
1/1 percentage correct: 100%
'adw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025703
No explanation needed.
1/1 percentage correct: 100%
'slashed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025702
1/1 percentage correct: 100%
No explanation necessary.
'jeromec https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026044
Correct. Would have been incorrect if U.S. didn't come back into Iran to start another war. Details a bit blurry.
1/1 percentage correct: 100%
'jsz0 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026022
No explanation needed.
2/2 percentage correct: 100%
'antirez https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025765
No explanation needed.
1/1 percentage correct: 100%
'rms https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025758
This happened, despite being far away.
1/1 percentage correct: 100%
'slvrspoon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025943
Progress with cancer happened, wasn't a big thing. Growth of a Chinese middle class with a voice and independence didn't happen. Nuclear detonation didn't happen. Achievements in energy tech happened. Wi-fi data collection on everything happened, though not main change. Internet and software a snore; happened. Privacy did become an issue for the common user.
4/7 percentage correct: 57%
'IsaacL https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1027093
Facebook successful.
Facebook IPO happened in time allotted.
Twitter became profitable.
Microsoft didn't go anywhere.
Microsoft grew, claim of shrinking denied.
Desktop market shrunk.
Internet Explorer went away. Point denied.
Mobile phones have more or less replaced computers for most average users. Point denied.
Mobile phones did cause most of the big changes during this decade.
More successful startups.
Startups with Facebook/YouTube proportions didn't happen. Point denied.
Huge startups built on phones and web tech did happen.
Startup ecosystem has gotten worse. Point denied.
"Startup instead of college" has gotten more intense.
Languages slower than Ruby caught on. Was not because of Moore's Law but because developers have the attention span of small rodents. Point denied.
Moore's Law is dead.
Deal to limit warming did happen, though it was in six years, not five, and far less than what is claimed here. Point denied.
Traditional retail gave way to delivery; large shops weren't impacted as much as small, and the incentives were wrong. Point denied.
China made no attempt to become democratic.
Rule of law in China got stronger, though civil liberties did not increase. Point denied.
Internet crackdowns have continued and increased in China.
12/21 percentage correct: 57%
'iamwil https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025885
Eugenics dating service from Harvard students was announced just a few days ago.
1/2 percentage correct: 50%
'DaniFong https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026260
Solar and wind are now cheaper than alternatives. Is not sold to customers "when they want it, how they want it."
1/2 percentage correct: 50%
'bioweek https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026279
Ubiquitous free internet did happen, wasn't a meshnet.
1/2 percentage correct: 50%
'borism https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025861
Web did not cease to be the delivery platform of choice for applications, it's gotten worse. Point denied.
Internet has become more restricted.
1/2 percentage correct: 50%
'zitterbewegung https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025906
PMCs have gotten more prevalent. Have not gotten more popular.
1/2 percentage correct: 50%
'brfox https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025855
Gene-therapy did become slightly more commonplace. Genome sequencing for chronic conditions is now commonplace (wouldn't have counted this if 'brfox didn't elaborate on the prediction in same thread).
2/5 percentage correct: 40%
'tommorris https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025771
GNU/Linux on the desktop didn't really happen, but Linux on the desktop did (ChromeOS).
Widespread adoption of LISP by developers sort of happened (Clojure), despite much adoption, still limited reach.
Cheaper hardware happened, and is the only thing I'm giving a full point for.
The rest didn't really happen.
1/6 percentage correct: 16.7%
----- Losers:
'varjag https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025740
Didn't happen.
0/1 percentage correct: 0%
'10ren https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026574
Nothing right, though first two slightly mirror events that happened ("you inside" = VR; mobile devices have specialized processors like "organs in the body," though multi-core is far from dead).
0/4 percentage correct: 0%
'erikstarck https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026088
Nothing accurate barring possibly the Google example, though not even it is really right.
0/3 percentage correct: 0%
'mojuba https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025706
Entirely wrong, unfortunately.
0/a-bunch percentage correct: 0%
'lallysingh https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025783
No substantial change in political bases, slight left-swing for demographic mentioned.
0/1 percentage correct: 0%
'artagon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025790
Entirely wrong.
0/6 percentage correct: 0%
'andrewcooke https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025727
None of this was correct, though AMD did make steps in that direction, and so did IBM/Sony.
0/2 percentage correct: 0%
'samuel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025853
It hasn't yet.
0/1 percentage correct: 0%
----- Honorable mentions:
'paraschopra https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025736
Half-point given because tablets rose to prominence and serve as partial e-Book readers, though they also killed dedicated ones.
.5/1 percentage correct: N/A
'Scott_MacGregor https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026255
1. His company failed.
2. Didn't happen.
3. Half-point given; free for everyone, usually privately-funded.
4. It's gotten worse.
5. No explanation necessary.
6. Didn't happen.
7. It's gotten worse.
.5/7 percentage correct: N/A
'zacharypinter https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025867
All claims basically correct, though flawed. Not taking into final % calculation or ranking for that reason.
4/5 percentage correct: N/A
'motters https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025738
Both predictions correct with large picture, both wrong on most details. Half-point awarded for each.
1/2 percentage correct: N/A
'motters https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025817
Problems with pensions happened, were not as bad as claimed.
.5/1 percentage correct: N/A
I checked and nobody predicted a Trump presidency in 2010. So no time travelers amongst us sadly.
- Server-side rendering is ubiquitous. Previously, motivations for client side rendering were to minimise network bandwidth requirements and to avoid server-side statefulness, reducing RAM and CPU requirements. By 2030, memory and compute resources are so cheap that the inherent advantages of server side rendering make it a no brainer for the most part.
- Discovery of extraterrestrial life will occur in mid to late 2020s, most likely in the form of Martian microbes. The James Webb Space Telescope will likely acquire strong evidence of organic lifeforms on multiple exoplanets. Even more surprising discoveries may be made in this area.
- Anti aging therapies become mainstream. By 2030, people in developed countries can expect to live an additional 10-15 years in good health. Reaching 'actuarial escape velocity' becomes a serious possibility for many people alive now. Governments realise the time will come when they will have to step in and bail out pension funds who have unwittingly sold annuities. There will be a group of people who were old enough to get an annuity before they became prohibitively expensive/unavailable and who were young enough to reach actuarial escape velocity. They will be labelled 'the luckiest generation ever'. This may not become totally apparent until 2030s or 2040s.
- Real time ray tracing becomes standard by late 2020s. Games are indistinguishable from reality. A murder case where defendant claims 'they thought they were ingame' makes the news headlines.
- Spacex's Starlink constellation is a massive commercial success. Partly due to this, and partly due to ubiquitous aerial drone-based delivery, it becomes not only possible, but increasingly desirable for many people to live in remote areas.
- Development of space based industry is slower than people hoped. Full exploitation of cheap launch capabilities provided by SpaceX won't be seen until 2030s. Blue Origin will catch up with Spacex's capabilities by mid 2020s. Private space launch industry will no longer be a one horse race.
- Electric cars overtake ICEs in developed nations. Several incumbents who don't react in time will go bankrupt and be acquired by electric car manufacturers. As such, the brands won't disappear, the executive boards however will be out of a job.
- Cryptocurrency will remain off the radar for most of 2020 until, due to major war involving a wealthy, developed country, millions of people will rush to buy Bitcoin to save what they can of their wealth. Price of one Bitcoin will quickly exceed $100,000 during this period.
- People will become increasingly afraid to post their physical likeness (appearance and voice in particular) on the internet due to a surge in deep-fake powered identity theft.
- North Korea will not collapse. The West will reluctantly accept it as a nuclear armed state. It will gradually normalise relations with the outside world and may even follow the same path China took, becoming a prosperous country in the process.
The tide will turn hard against “the cloud” when companies figure out their cloud spend is many times worse than their own data centres cost them. There may be a new wave of “lean” cloud systems.
Fast programming languages will be in vogue again once the wastefulness of things like Ruby/Erlang is finally understood.
There will be a spectacular fire because of an improper electrical install that will become a huge news media event with people asking whether or not EV's are actually safe (despite ICE vehicles having gas tanks)
There will be a major continent-wide power outage either because of a natural disaster or a highly sophisticated and coordinated attack against the poorly secured power stations that at least span NA.
Valve will beat the ever-living daylights out of everyone else in the cloud gaming space.