
Ask HN: What non-obvious tech/market may take off in the next few years? - cocktailpeanuts
Hi HN, I&#x27;m trying to find some exciting but not-yet-mainstream tech or market to look into.<p>For the last couple of years I&#x27;ve been completely focused on one field and have not been staying on top of what the latest hot tech trend is, so kind of lost what I should be looking at. Note that I&#x27;m not just chasing some tech hype, but just want to know what I&#x27;ve been missing out on.<p>This doesn&#x27;t have to be brand new tech per se, but could be a re-application of a previously failed technology which makes sense now because the world has changed.<p>Please share anything you think is really cool that may take off soon. Also would be nice if you shared the reason for why you think it will be the next couple of years when they take off to mainstream. Thank you!
======
searchableguy
No code/low code. People here underestimate the work it requires to craft a
production CRUD app and keep it working.

The problem these tools solve are more related to infrastructure rather than
one's ability to code. Learning to code might be the easiest part but
deploying it, maintaining it, scaling it, securing it and integrating it with
thousands of other services remains a huge task even for experienced folks.
It's wasted time and effort for something that is cookie cutter in
functionality and limited in scope (vast majority of web).

Some of them provide collaboration tools, development environment and experts
on call which is neat.

Add ease of outsourcing, too. The employer doesn't have to worry about
maintenance once the product is finished. Many good platforms will allow you
an easy migration path and better security controls. That comes at a vendor
lock in. That's the price but given the life expectancy of smaller companies
and startups, it may as well be worth it.

~~~
jppope
Every VC in the world right now is betting on this becoming a thing... problem
is that No Code/ Low Code as a product doesn't actually solve the problem that
they are trying to solve.

The overarching concept of No Code/ Low Code is that "code" is the hard part
of building software, ergo if we can make it so "normal" people don't have to
code the problem is solved. Of course we all know that code isn't the hard
part of the job- if code was the issue software developers would all be using
No Code/ Low Code solutions already (as it's been pointed out, they've been
around forever).

No Code/ Low Code is about selling accessibility to the wantrepreneur crowd...
the same people that have an "app idea" that they want you to build. It's a
huge market, but it isn't going to have an impact on software development any
more than model rockets would have on the aerospace industry.

If the No Code/ Low Code tools were any good software developers would already
be using them.

(When I am talking about No Code/ Low code, I am not talking about things like
Webflow / Dreamweaver NOT solutions like Serverless.)

~~~
Eridrus
As a counterpoint, my ML team regularly dumps data into Google Sheets for
review / note taking, and we build dashboards using some SQL dashboarding
tools.

I've cobbled together email sign up forms for some non-technical side projects
with Google Forms, App Script and MailChimp.

I'm not a frontend developer so maybe frontend folks will tell me it's super
easy, but my feeling is that there is a lot of space for low code tools that
produce software that is not polished, but good enough.

~~~
meiraleal
That's not code, it is software usage. The same way a gamer is not a coder
when he type some small things in the console or add some script.

------
ahelwer
One idea I've had (heavily influenced by The Diamond Age, I must admit) - a
premium video game experience where NPCs you meet are sometimes voiced/acted
by actors hired real-time on-demand with face or even body mocap. The NPCs
revert back to regular AI versions if an actor is unable to be hired at that
time. The player could interact by speaking with their own voice, naturally
role-playing the scene. This would of course be astonishingly expensive, but
people are clearly willing to spend a lot of money on video games these days
so there might be a market. You could create the company providing the real-
time on-demand acting service to whatever game company wants to integrate with
your services, either contracting or hiring actors to wait around for
requests. They could even work from home if their internet setup is good
enough.

Reasons this sector might take off: recent greater consumer spending on video
games (especially with the pandemic) & their normalization as a field of
entertainment, recent greater consumer spending on online services where you
pay to interact with actors (although they're all of the, er, amorous type),
and the growing popularity of mixed reality driven by the release of Half
Life: Alyx.

~~~
Guest19023892
I don't think this makes sense for a number of reasons.

1\. As you said, the costs involved. You'd probably need to charge people
something like $10 per interaction with a voice actor, plus $2 per minute.
This makes for a very limited market.

2\. Actors need to be waiting for a request on a wide range of characters
since there would not be enough demand for them to consistently play the same
character all the time. So, when a player triggers an interaction, there's
going to be a delay as the actor is brought up to speed on their role, the
person they're interacting with, the world they're in, etc.

3\. When players return to a NPC, they'll likely be assigned a different actor
since the previous one is either in another call or not working. This kind of
ruins the premium interactions since the player remembers the voice and small
details of the last conversation, but now the NPC has suddenly changed.

4\. You're in the business of matching up adult voice actors with children
playing games. You'll need a record of every single conversation because it's
only a matter of time before you get reports of inappropriate conversations
unfolding.

5\. This isn't a long term business. Technology gets better each day at
speaking and understanding human voice. It will replace the voice actors and
it also solves all of the above issues.

~~~
lobotryas
A lot of these issues can be solved with ML ala “deepfakes”

Purchase a license to use an actor’s voice/likeness. Have them complete a
training set. Now you have their digital doppleganger who can act almost any
role required of them.

~~~
ahelwer
As the other commenter said, the big appeal of this approach is the ability to
improvise dialogue or even actions.

------
grahoho
Augmented Reality. Apple seems poised to release some AR Glasses based on the
patents they've been registering and the investment they've made in the ARKit
framework. This will probably become another iPhone-like platform for
developing apps on, and will likely present opportunities like the early days
of the App Store.

There's a cool project trending on Github right now showing how magic-like
some of the technology in this space is: [https://github.com/cyrildiagne/ar-
cutpaste](https://github.com/cyrildiagne/ar-cutpaste)

~~~
nbawal
I think it has been tried unsuccessfully many times. There is even a Silicon
Valley episode about it. Certainly it does not fit the "non-obvious"
criterion.

Apart from gamers, people just don't want it.

~~~
marketgod
I'd be interested in something for a desktop. Currently, I have 3 monitors and
having an extra 2 at the market open would be perfect then put away the
headset after 30 minutes and just watch the market. If anyone has a
recommendation.

~~~
chriscaruth
Would those additional monitors be used for web based access or would you want
them to directly connect to your machine? If the former, you could pick up a
mixed reality headset and spin up web browsers and use them as additional
"monitors". Something like this: [https://quipscom-
my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/chris_caru...](https://quipscom-
my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/chris_caruth_quips_com/ET0r8sHXax1ChEhtZVNohj8BNLfP-
kCkSV9nPa7a5Phbjg?e=9v8Z32)

~~~
marketgod
Chris, thanks for this. I completely missed this comment. I will look into
that as an option. Right now my trading platform is an old windows app as most
stock trading applications are and the web browser version doesn't allow all
the features, but this looks like something I will have to try.

------
cprayingmantis
I think small to mid scale farm ag-tech is going to become huge in the next
decade. We already see large industrial farms making use of more and more tech
what happens when that tech scale shrinks down.

~~~
brianhorakh
I work on this. Ai driven garden appliances. Biogensis accelerators. This type
of tech is hard to make reliable and user friendly. Requires a lot of sensors
and lab equipment to be engineered, mass produced, user friendly and reliable.
One discrete failure and it kills the crop.

~~~
jppope
Whats your company called? I'm very interested in this as a hobby. Farmbot,
small robot co, etc

------
barnabee
Electric aircraft for shorter trips instead of trains. The battery energy
density still needs to improve somewhat but that is happening.

They’d allow for serving more direct (point to point) routes than trains as
the infrastructure cost is so much lower than laying and maintaining tracks.
Rail serving high volume routes still makes sense, especially while electric
plans remain relatively small.

~~~
SahAssar
I might be wrong but this seems like a very US-centric idea. For most of the
developed world trains fill this need very well, while the US has had problems
with their rail network for reasons partially based on geography, partially
based on population density, and partially based on their own fault. I think
this explains it pretty well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ)

The solution is not aircraft, the solution is more and better trains. Or
perhaps autonomous buses/trucks depending on how far out you look.

~~~
wtracy
IDK, high-speed rail doesn't seem to be taking off outside of Europe and a
handful of Asian countries.

That leaves most of Asia outside India/China/Korea/Japan, and pretty much all
of Australia/Oceania, Africa, the Middle East, and the entire New World.

I would love to see high-speed rail take over the world, but there's a lot of
sparsely-populated places out there, and it makes sense to investigate
technologies to support them.

~~~
SahAssar
Sparsely-populated places are the cheapest places to build rail, both because
of land prices and also the cost of labour. I think that for any volume of
passengers over shorter distances that would be large enough to mandate a
regular airway it would be cheaper to build high-speed rail. At least over the
long term the economics of scale should take over and besides that a rail
network is more useful for shipping of goods than a airport would be.

In the US it'd require similar effort/cost as the Interstate Highway System
did, but would probably yield equal economic benefit.

~~~
psadri
The problem is that train routes are fixed So it only makes sense to connect
regions with high populations. Aircraft can go anywhere, including places with
small populations.

~~~
SahAssar
Sure, they could, but they don't. Aircraft require airports, ATC, large land
areas for landing/takeoff and so on.

In general aircraft for passenger or cargo routes take a few routes and don't
shift much.

------
frabcus
It's worth understanding the kind of disruption you mean - product to product,
or product to commodity. Simon Wardley has a blog with lots of posts about
this.

Also his free book about Wardley Mapping is useful for understanding the phase
changes of bespoke to warring products to commodity.

For specific ideas, see "Figure 2 - Wars" in this Simon Wardley blog post
(written five years ago, diagram is I think ten years old so you can validate
early parts of it): [https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/02/on-two-forms-of-
disrupt...](https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/02/on-two-forms-of-
disruptions.html)

We're currently just come through war phase (when there's fierce competition
to own commodity versions and lots of new innovation gets built on top) of Big
Data.

From the diagram, the next wars Simon reckons should happen about now (and I
can't find a post where he explains how he made that diagram) are:

    
    
      * Sensor as a Service (think radically better health or environment sensors, detecting important trace molecules cheaply)
      * Robotics (I guess think Ocado warehouses, or Shenzhen factories)
      * Currency (digital can change this in ways other than Bitcoin, depending on your politics too)
    

Then the phase after that in 5-10 years time are:

    
    
      * Internet of Things (I'm guessing by then the microcomputers might be *so* cheap and network *so* easy they literally go in everything)
      * Immersive (VR/AR I think)
      * 3D printing (it's not very good or cheap yet, it will be)
      * Genetic Engineering, GMO
      * Social Change (not clear what this means, but certainly you can look around the world and see the demand)
    

You can look for yourself for more.

For slightly longer term, worth knowing the word "spime" as something to head
for as well.

------
blhack
Distributed IT/office that services remote workers in their homes.

Pay a fee and you get access to a pool of desks, chairs, computers, and an
IT/office staff to come to your house and maintain it and set it up.

In that vein: tooling to manage remote workers.

------
objectReason
A potential game changer in the 3D printing space is Rapid Liquid Printing or
(RLP). Why is it exciting? Normal 3D printers have to build from the ground
up, one layer at a time. It wastes a lot of energy and time because the print
head paths are restricted to one plane. In RLP, by contrast, prints are made
in a bath of gelatin, the printer head is freely able to move in 3 dimensions
allowing it to take the most direct path to form prints. No wasted movement =
less time and more structurally sound parts.

RLP was developed by MIT a few years back and I haven't heard much from it
since. Maybe that will change over the next few years.
[https://selfassemblylab.mit.edu/rapid-liquid-
printing](https://selfassemblylab.mit.edu/rapid-liquid-printing)

------
objectReason
Neural input devices could become a thing in the next few years. I, for one,
would love to have a wearable which could translate neural signals into text
and directional input - in lieu of a keyboard and mouse. My inevitable carpal
tunnel could stop advancing.

Thanks to newly available hardware like MyoWare, affordable neural sensors
have become available to garage tinkerers. I think it's simply a matter of
time before we're all interfacing with our computers and phones via wearables.
[http://www.advancertechnologies.com/p/myoware.html](http://www.advancertechnologies.com/p/myoware.html)

------
mrfusion
Space tech, things for mars. (Elon is going to need a lot of help)

VR development. It really hasn’t hit mainstream yet and when it changes how we
work that could be huge.

I think AI based procedural generation of games. Seeing how good gpt3 is
getting this seems like it could be huge.

AI based personalized education. Have you seen how well gpt3 can explain
concepts? Could something like that also evaluate your understanding, come up
with custom learning plans?

------
user_501238901
Video games of some sort, where the game map is a 1:1 replica of the real
world using streamed GIS data.

The new microsoft flight simulator is already kinda there.

------
jacknews
Using AI to identify breakout technology or trends that are set to go
mainstream.

The benefit is that the operators of said technology can 'invest' in that
bandwagon and reap piggy-back profits, while mitigating the inherent risk of
actually developing those technologies or trends from scratch.

------
brianhorakh
Hombrew advanced material fabrication (especially with graphene)

Open lab equipment. Open Sensor designs.

~~~
brianhorakh
Also demand for solarpunk architecture and design themes, also those
incorporating smart biological controls (probably uv filters and Biocidal
surfaces) for at least a few years after covid.

------
skmurphy
Privacy - Duck Duck Go may overtake Google at some point.

Better Email management tools, use existing transport but allow you to manage
1,000 to 10,000 inbound messages in an hour of work. Note: this is not mean to
offer encouragement for more to send 10,000 outbound messages or fall into
Uncanny Valley of Email Automation (see
[https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/03/25/the-uncanny-
valley-...](https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/03/25/the-uncanny-valley-of-
email-automation/))

IoT / Mirror World / Smart City / Digital Twin / Cyberspace is everting
Sensors are woven into more of the natural world and the built world.
Opportunities for services and better management and governance of natural and
built world. Implications for Privacy. See
[https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2017/04/19/cyberspace-
everts-i...](https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2017/04/19/cyberspace-everts-into-
the-real-world-as-iot/)

~~~
kevindong
> Better Email management tools, use existing transport but allow you to
> manage 1,000 to 10,000 inbound messages in an hour of work.

What single person receives that many emails in any given hour?

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
Exactly. the problem with email tools is that it's built by people who think
everyone receives thousands of emails. 99.999% of the world only receives less
than 10 emails per day. They have no such problem as "information overload"
when it comes to email.

~~~
skmurphy
The people and businesses who have the problem are willing to pay a lot to
solve it. It's a high value problem to solve.

If your competitor(s) could process the equivalent of 10,000 inbound messages
a day would they be able to maintain a higher level of situational awareness
on early trends and harbingers? Could they uncover and address opportunities
before you became aware of them?

------
jwitchel
Disaster mitigation products and services. Tools that enable better management
of things that go bad. Nat disasters are obvious but also think ransomware,
medical disasters, covid of course. Think insurance but also detection,
contact mapping, probability models for fires, resource dispatching, hedging
for financial impact, remediation planning.

Disasters seem to be regrettably a growth market these days.

------
artemisyna
Threads like this is cause 2/3rds of it will end up being “what’s something
that folks have heard about in the news but hasn’t gotten big (enough for more
press) yet”.

Rephrased, this question is also more of a product-market fit one (“which
market exists/will exist but doesn’t have its demand satisfied yet”), whereas
a lot of answers are focused on the tech.

------
jbpnoy6fifty
X-as-a-service platforms that allow companies to perform segments of their
oprations either with ease, or outsource it.

It's been the big thing for a while, but still continues to grow.

Basically, these are tools to make it faster and faster to spin up a business
from scratch, by allowing those companies to focus more on the product itself
rather than refactorable non-essentials. They may also offer value-added
features such as "network effect" ability to optimize that packaged solutions,
or a platform that allows them to provide quicker no code/low code Analytics
to identify trends to be able to make business decisions accordingly.

Examples of companies that do this.

* AWS (infrastructure) * Salesforce * Azure * Pagerduty * Splunk * DevOps as a service companies * HR as a service

Also, I recommend not caring about what's new, hot, and shiny; it's best to
really understand market fit, and market potential; and build something
"useful"

------
plexiglas
Social media retirement services.

~~~
chrisgoman
Whole cottage industry of this following AA/NA model called Social Media
Anonymous. You could have camps, meetings, therapy, etc

~~~
jpindar
And you'd definitely want an app, where people could chat, share their
stories... :)

------
cryptica
Existing technology business models will be adapted and re-launched as
services which are coupled to cryptocurrency tokens.

Also, we may see the rise of cryptocurrency communities which attempt to
manipulate company insiders and governments to gain control of the proceeds of
production to drive the value of their cryptocurrencies. Private property
rights will be eroded (due to lack of enforcement and increasing systemic
corruption) and so cryptocurrency, which offers a cryptographic means of
ownership (which does not rely on law), will gain increasing significance.

The proceeds of production will no longer go to shareholders, they will be
diverted to cryptocurrency holders. The shareholders who embrace this mindset
of moving profits to cryptocurrencies will see their ownership stake of
company profits increase at the expense of those who resist this shift. In the
end, nobody will want to own stocks since they will no longer yield profits.
Corporations will behave like non-profits; the profits will be funneled to
cryptocurrencies.

All of this will be completely legal and almost everyone will support it. In
10 years, this will be completely obvious.

We are in a post-scarcity economy. Wealth creation will have little to do with
productivity and everything to do with redefinition and redistribution of
existing ownership rights. We will see cryptographic ownership rights surpass
legal ownership rights. Once this new, highly fluid, decentralized financial
infrastructure is firmly in place, the transfer of wealth will end up
facilitating a new wave of massive decentralized productivity with a stronger
focus on social principles.

~~~
cryptica
If you're downvoting this, you are probably missing the fact that this already
started. Ethereum has already managed to infiltrate many companies and these
companies already started diverting some of their profits to buying up
Ethereum. Even Reddit is getting into Ethereum. This is just the beginning.

~~~
biolurker1
HN crowd has a lot of crypto deniers. The funny thing is that HN leaders like
literally PG, Googl Bosses, Zuck and Marc Andreasen are very bullish on it. So
it doesn't take much to realize who is right

~~~
KozmoNau7
Like the rest of SV, they are blinded by hubris and their own blindness to the
downsides of tech.

Crypto currency is a disaster.

~~~
biolurker1
You mean you know better than everyone that has been extremely Successful
right? OK :)

~~~
KozmoNau7
Survivorship bias is a real thing, and very relevant when discussing tech
magnates.

~~~
biolurker1
If you want to make this argument it should also hold for everyone. Einstein
was lucky, Newton didn't get killed by accident etc. But if you are in denial
you can make a lot of arguments.

------
badrabbit
Starlink+Drones.

People using apps like cashapp to ditch traditional banks leading to loans and
other financial activity to be done over these newer apps.

------
pajop
Check out [https://practicum.substack.com](https://practicum.substack.com) and
also this Twitter thread of futurist sites
[https://threader.app/thread/1296654041569570819](https://threader.app/thread/1296654041569570819)

------
ape4
Generically engineered plants for the home

~~~
brianhorakh
You mean "genetically"? They already are.. Like roses, or most patented
strains. Lots of research into cannabis. What do you think these plants do?

~~~
wtracy
This is what genetic recombination has made possible in tropical fish in just
the last ten years:

[https://www.glofish.com/](https://www.glofish.com/)

I don't doubt we will see CRISPR and friends applied to ornamental plants the
way they are already applied to food crops.

~~~
brianhorakh
Actually: [https://phys.org/news/2020-05-crispr-non-gmo-
method.html](https://phys.org/news/2020-05-crispr-non-gmo-method.html)

------
jacknews
Beyond meat, fake milk, etc.

------
NathanFlurry
Web 3/Dweb minus the crypto built on IPFS (or something similar).

I believe many developers will soon come to realize that you don't need a
blockchain to build most decentralized applications. Products like like Google
Docs, social networks, messaging app, etc don't depend on a proof of stake,
and we shouldn't be running miners to power such simple operations. All these
applications need isa decentralized form of message distribution and log
storage paired with public-key cryptography in order to build a CRDT log. I
understand why IPFS in itself at first glance often seems over-hyped, since it
is essentially just a hyper-distributed caching layer. However, I highly
recommend looking at technologies built on top of it like
[OrbitDB]([https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-
db](https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-db)) and
[Textile]([https://textile.io/](https://textile.io/)). When they work
reliably, their API is as easy if not easier than other "server-less" products
like Firebase or Parse to use. Once libraries like these become mature, I
believe the way we build software will be flipped on its head within 10-15
years to be completely client focused with minimal backend infrastructure.

The main advantages I see are:

* Increased reliability. This allows developers to remove almost all of their centralized servers and rely instead on a common infrastructure and protocol.

* Much simpler codebases and infrastructure. You only need to write a frontend for most applications. Building on u/searchableguy's comment: I can see no/low code tooling really taking off with decentralized-first applications, since there is no need to manage a complicated backend infrastructure with vendor lock-in.

* Real-time by default. Since IPFS databases run off of CRDT logs which rely on realtime syncing of new operations, they are benefit from immediate updates at all times – even when not connected to the main swarm out in the boonies. * Offline-first by default.

* Cost/resource efficiency. No technology is magical, but [this]([https://withblue.ink/2019/03/20/hugo-and-ipfs-how-this-blog-...](https://withblue.ink/2019/03/20/hugo-and-ipfs-how-this-blog-works-and-scales.html)) article from March is an early real world demonstration of how well this technology works already.

* Transport agnostic. It's completely feasible to have your watch, your phone, and your laptop have their IPFS nodes connected over Bluetooth, but never have to worry about if and how they're connected together since IPFS takes care of handling that P2P connectivity automatically. Instead of writing code that says "my watch created a reminder, upload this to the cloud for my laptop and also tell my phone this happened if we're connected," I can just write "my watch created a reminder, broadcast this operation to the IPFS network" and your phone and laptop will automatically receive this update.

* Security. The less that is stored on centralized servers, the better. While OrbitDB is not built to work off an encrypted database yet (it's in the roadmap for v1), Textile already is. Having everything be encrypted by default and optionally never leaving my device has many advantages.

The main challenges I see blocking this from going mainstream:

* Reliability still feels like the early days of the internet. The database-level libraries are still young, IPFS is slow/unreliable at times, and browser support is fairly strong but still has a way to go, and native mobile/native support is nonexistent.

* Filecoin is not ready yet. You still need to run your own IPFS node/swarm in order to do anything serious. Existing pinning services can only go so far if you're working with something like OrbitDB.

* Education. Security is of upmost important when designing technologies like this, so developers need to understand how a CRDT log works, how to build with merge conflicts in mind, and how to write/manage custom ACL for complex interactions. It also takes a different way of thinking to design networks like this.

* Reliability and security audits.

* Transport protocols. At the moment, many of the advantages of P2P over things like Bluetooth have not been realized yet since the IPFS core is still where most of the development is focused at the moment.

* Cross-platform support. IPFS only has an official Go and JavaScript node implementation with a Rust implementation in the works. While Go has become fairly portable in recent years, it still has a very bloated runtime that doesn't embed well on mobile and web. Once we have a reliable Rust port and some OrbitDB-like Rust-based libraries ports, I suspect we'll start seeing ergonomic mobile and web APIs that bind to these popping up.

To be clear, I'm not saying centralized servers will vanish in to thin air.
There are many tasks like indexing large amounts of data that are incredibly
difficult and not beneficial to build on a distributed network. The
decentralized web – if done right – will make developers' lives much easier
for many common applications, but there should not be a need to port things
that aren't practical to run on the Dweb.

[Edit: Formatting]

~~~
shireboy
Without blockchain, what do you see being the incentive for people to host
nodes?

~~~
NathanFlurry
Filecoin is a blockchain which Protocol Labs is using to (a) creating a
decentralized way to pay miners to pin your file (i.e. store a permanent copy
of your file) and (b) partially used as a funding source for the core project
through its ICO.

Beyond that, [here]([https://discuss.ipfs.io/t/ipfs-
incentives/2456/2](https://discuss.ipfs.io/t/ipfs-incentives/2456/2)) is a
good explanation.

To elaborate a bit more: When you set up a node using an unmodified version of
their program at the moment, you tell it how much storage to allocate and it
will automatically fill the remaining space that you're not using with cached
chunks of other peoples' files, essentially "donating" your extra resources.
When you fetch a file, your computer will purge the LRU chunks and replace it
with that data you just fetched and store that in the cache. This way, the
more people who access a file, the more widely distributed that file is
cached.

For example, Cloudflare hosts an [IPFS
gateway]([https://blog.cloudflare.com/distributed-web-
gateway/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/distributed-web-gateway/)). Since it's
in their interest to deliver these files as fast as possible, their nodes
which fetched these files from the IPFS network will have them cached and
available to anyone else who requests said files. While it's definitely not
the same concept in terms of incentive/resource intensiveness/authority, my
hope is that IPFS will work well for the same reason things like DNS works
effectively. Time will tell on this one.

------
tmaly
There is some potential for commodity hardware with AI to spawn some
innovation in the maker space.

------
UncleOxidant
Rapid tests you can do at home for a variety of viral illnesses, initially for
COVID-19, but expanding to a wider variety of viruses and virus types. Being
able to track viruses in real-time will become a priority to attempt to thwart
future pandemics.

------
josefrichter
Human body sensors -> API -> ML for diagnostics, neural control, etc.

------
zamboni-killer
Smart Tattoos. Color E-ink displays. Eventually: holographic VR.

~~~
brianhorakh
I tried to get a smart tattoo (design my own, long story). Metallic inks
aren't safe. Nonstarter. All sorts of nasty issues with xray, cat scanners and
airport backscatter machines.

------
shahbaby
SpaceX's Starlink \+ Increasing acceptance of remote work = A significant
shift away from congested cities towards more rural areas

------
bovermyer
Open agriculture.

~~~
brianhorakh
Every farmer i talk to about this doesn't store their data in compatible
formats (yet) There are no standards.

~~~
bovermyer
That's not what I mean.

Commercial agriculture is heavily dependent on, and influenced by, companies
that zealously guard what they see as their intellectual property.

When I say "open agriculture," I'm referring to protecting free
experimentation and open seed culture.

~~~
brianhorakh
More likely we'll move away from seeds towards sharing clones of rooted
cuttings. Much more predictable.

Open cutting exchange is a good idea actually. Trace genetics.

~~~
edgyquant
I doubt it as that opens up the possibility of one disease wiping out the
whole population ala the old breed of Bananas that candies are based on which
went extinct in the 70s IIRC.

------
CharlesDodgson
In the crypto world there is a lot of hype around DeFi (decentralised finance)
like everything in crypto it a mix of good technical ideas, lots of marketing
bd, and a host of obnoxious bros. At the heart of it though there are really
interesting things around liquidity.

I will be boring now and say that Cloud services will continue to expand, it's
effectively a tax on doing work on the internet and start-ups love using
cloud, the idea of maintaining your own servers is considered silly unless
their is some particular reason to. I expect to see growth of 20% yoy in that
sector for the top 3 players. Azure, GCP and AWS.

------
gramakri
Personal home servers

------
mcilai
Deep learning will continue to surprise

~~~
supernova87a
Nice try, GPT-3.

------
strikelaserclaw
webassembly

~~~
halfmatthalfcat
Lol, I wish as well but people have been saying this for the past 3 years.

~~~
mgamache
I think there still performance issues when manipulating the DOM. When those
get worked out (and they will), it may change the velocity of adoption.

------
sritrisna
Specialized Accounting / Bookkeeping Services.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
Can you elaborate? And why do you think it will go mainstream in the next few
years?

~~~
gverrilla
probably AI

------
brudgers
Film photography.

~~~
foopod
Agreed. This is definitely a growing market today, I don't see why it wouldn't
continue to grow. There are many areas that haven't been improved upon in
decades as well. Things like..

\+ Negative Scanning Technology (the most revered scanners are from 10+ years
ago)

\+ New Film Emulsions

\+ Moving from gelatin to a plant-based substitute for gel emulsions

\+ Opportunities for automation in film processing

------
jacknews
Asteroid mining.

------
dvh
Elysium

------
EE84M3i
Honestly, why would anyone share a good idea here? I get it that ideas are
cheap, but if someone actually thinks they have slam dunk they're not going to
share it on HN.

~~~
skmurphy
Some folks--including many on HN--have many more insights or "good ideas" than
they can execute on. If they want to see them come to fruition they are not
harmed by giving away a substantial fraction of them that they don't plan to
execute on but still see the possibility of and need for.

See [http://blog.fogus.me/2015/11/04/the-100101-method-my-
approac...](http://blog.fogus.me/2015/11/04/the-100101-method-my-approach-to-
open-source/) or [https://www.nickbentley.games/the-100-10-1-method-for-
game-d...](https://www.nickbentley.games/the-100-10-1-method-for-game-design/)
for two descriptions of a 100:10:1 model. There are other models.

