HACKER Q&A
📣 tikkun

What will surprise HN in 2024?


HN readers are well-informed and usually ahead of the curve on many trends and technologies. However, no one can foresee everything.

Looking to 2024, what developments in your area of expertise do you believe could emerge as significant topics of discussion here on HN in 2024? Are there any under-the-radar shifts that you think people are currently unaware of?


  👤 bob1029 Accepted Answer ✓
> Are there any under-the-radar shifts that you think people are currently unaware of?

Cloud-native consolidation of tech stacks & teams. When I say "cloud-native", I am very specifically referring to the definition outlined in a recent paper [0]. Right now, there is a miasma of uncertainty when you walk into a room and say "cloud native". Most people right now think you intend to spin up a K8s cluster or something to that effect. A circus of complexity for its own sake, most likely.

A few of us are now using the bare-ass, cloud-native FaaS runners as prescribed above and seeing how this can replace 80%+ of the current tech org charts we consult for. I cannot imagine it will be a positive, happy outcome for most people in the tech industry right now. There is one very particular technology vendor who seems to have the vertical 100% mastered and the barycenter of HN discourse does not seem very fond of their tactics thus far. I think the beatings increase until morale improves on this one.

[0]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.01045 (Figure 1; Right-most stack)


👤 beardyw
How quickly we arrive at 2025.

👤 h2odragon
Some of the "conspiracy theories" not worth discussing here, will turn out to have real world consequences. The politics of "wishing will make it so" and "disagreement equals Evil" are burning the last of their capital.