643
it keeps getting momentum (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
52 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 39 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The tech bros have been disastrously wrong about the future of technology twice since Moore's Law broke and the endless treadmill of computer upgrades stopped: about crypto and about the metaverse. They're desperate to not be wrong again, and they think that by spending enough money they can generate a reality distortion field that actually makes overhyped AI financially feasible. So they're going to keep pumping the money in as long as they've got it. But even their wallets are finite.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    As someone who has regularly used virtual worlds for 20 years, the whole Metaverse thing was so hilarious.

    Like, Facebook did not invent 3D online worlds, there are 3D online worlds older than Facebook.

    "But wait, metaverse is not just 3D Virtual Worlds."

    Which inecitably leads to "ok, so its just "The Internet".

    As for the "Constantly being wrong." At somepoint, these people forgot that "having an idea" does not mean "Having a useful idea." You hear arguments about all these flash in the pan bull shit concepts like "People said the same thing about the internet or the iPhone." Yeah, and they said the same thing about a dozen other new idea that time forgot for every Internet or every iPhone idea that took off. Not every idea is "the next big thing". Statisrically, most ideas are "Not ever a thing."

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    As for the "Constantly being wrong." At somepoint, these people forgot that "having an idea" does not mean "Having a useful idea."

    Absolutely. They can't fathom anymore that, just because they want something, it doesn't mean that anyone else does. Or that they're not already getting it, even if they do.

    You hear arguments about all these flash in the pan bull shit concepts like "People said the same thing about the internet or the iPhone."

    Right, and I always think, "both of those solved actual problems that hadn't been solved before." Problems that I remember feeling, as a person who was conscious in the 90s: the need for quick, efficient, long-distance information transfer, and the problem that computers were stuck in your house when a lot of what you needed them for was while you were walking around.

    Cryptocurrency didn't solve a problem that most people feel (and, I would argue, it didn't efficiently solve a problem that anyone actually has). The metaverse didn't solve any new problems at all (as you noted, the one thing it could do that anyone wanted was something that was already being done). And AI was already being used for anything it was good for long before Sam Altman convinced a dozen billionaires to give him multiple small-countries'-GDPs.

    And since being a good businessman really means finding a solution and offering a product that solves it, they're just proving how bad they are at business.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent