
The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010) - feross
https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-out-looking-like-a-toy/
======
aazaa
I think most participants in the Internet circa 1996 and personal computers in
the early 1980s would understand this idea.

The Internet was being widely written off as a toy that many couldn't ever
imagine having practical applications.

Case in point, this widely-cited piece from 1998:

> The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's
> law"\--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is
> proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent:
> most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become
> clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the
> fax machine's.

[http://web.archive.org/web/19980610100009/www.redherring.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/19980610100009/www.redherring.com/mag/issue55/economics.html)

Here are some fun things about this concept of toys turning into big things:

1\. toys start out looking like toys, too

2\. it's extremely difficult to distinguish the toys that will remain toys
forever from those that will become "the next big thing."

A useful approach to the problem posed by (2) is to look at things that appear
to be toys but refuse to die despite every indication that they should have
done so long ago.

Toys that remain toys often have a trendiness and inelasticity to them that
gives them naturally short lives. If you see a toy lingering long beyond the
time it should have given up the ghost, you may be looking at the next big
thing.

The next problem is that it can take a very long time for a toy to turn into
the next big thing.

~~~
cookingrobot
By this test, is Lego the next big thing?

~~~
DannyB2
The real test, I think, is something that has genuinely useful applications to
anyone with a little bit of vision.

Big entrenched players are unable to see the next big thing, because they see
the world through the glasses of their successful business. Microsoft for
example almost missed the internet, and suddenly realized it in 1995. I
believe Bill Gates was quoted as saying it was just a fad. The funny thing is
that more than a decade earlier (about 1980) I heard the same thing about
"personal computers" or "microcomputers". Just a fad. A toy. Never will
compete with IBM's "real" computers, etc.

Similarly, these new fangled "automobile" thingies will never become popular.
They are noisy. Smelly. Unreliable. Difficult to start. You can even break
your arm if it kicks back while you are cranking it. And worst of all (gasp!)
they frighten the horses! That's why these automobile thingies are just rich
kid's toys. A fad.

I guess they couldn't see that all of those imperfections I listed could be
fixed.

Back in the 1990s I saw this interesting tv program. Sorry, can't remember. It
was about personal computers. The person being interviewed said the entrenched
players NEVER see the next big thing coming. So they hire someone smart who
will see it coming, and then tell them when its coming. And then when they are
told this is the NEXT BIG THING! They never believe it.

Speaking of Microsoft almost missing the internet, they did entirely miss the
new generation of smartphones starting with the iPhone. Ballmer laughed at the
iPhone. They woke up to the new reality after it was too late. Sorry iPhone
and Android already dominated. Smart phones sold in unit volumes that dwarfed
PC unit volumes. Win Phone 7, followed by an incompatible Win Phone 8 didn't
stand a chance -- even with nice Nokia hardware.

~~~
pcnix
The idea that you speak of, about bug entrenched companies not being able to
see new things coming - it's the central theme of The Innovator's Dilemma. I
highly recommend that book if you wish to read about this further.

~~~
18pfsmt
I think you are replying to someone that has worked for G for a long time, and
is using their knowm alt-account (i.e. not hiding anything). He probably read
that book when he was ~25 yrs. old.

------
guptaneil
If you're hung up on the word "toy," another way of phrasing this is the next
big thing will look like just a hobby to most people.

Looking forward, smart homes and 3D printing are 2 industries that fall in
this bucket. Both feel like toys to the majority of the market right now, but
have the potential to completely change how we live.

3D printing - low-cost manufacturing has completely revolutionized what's
possible for startups, and developed a large hobbyist following, but we
haven't scratched the surface of how they can change day-to-day life for
everybody. Imagine what's possible once they support more material types
(metal, electrical circuits, food, etc) and every home has one, like an oven.

Smart homes - we just have fancy remote controls so far, but eventually we'll
be living like Tony Stark with homes that constantly adapt to us without
input. This is where we'll see the benefit of ambient computing present itself
clearest. Imagine a home that helps you raise your child, keep your chores in
order, or handle the repetitive tasks without requiring a primary care-taker
to be responsible for keeping the home in order.

disclaimer: I'm building Hiome ([https://hiome.com](https://hiome.com)) to
turn smart homes into more than just toys, so maybe I'm a little biased.

~~~
bcrosby95
Before smart homes are more than just a toy, they need to have functionality
that is actually time saving.

I've messed with smart home stuff and so far the only thing that has been
useful beyond being a toy is our robot vacuum, which I'm not sure is really
classified as a smart home thing.

As someone that lives in California, something that could be an actual $$ and
time saver rather than just a toy is if I could have a system that would open
windows rather than turning on the AC when the outside temperature is low
enough.

~~~
minitoar
_which I 'm not sure is really classified as a smart home thing._

This is amusing to me, I think as soon as something becomes somewhat common it
will no longer be classified as "smart home". Sort of like how the definition
of AI is a moving target.

~~~
bcrosby95
It's definitely a smart device. But to me a smart home has a central system
that can monitor a variety of inputs and, in response, control a set of things
to accomplish some goal.

We have a robot vacuum and robot mopper. Me going over and pressing the robot
vacuum button, then once its done, placing the robot mopper in position and
pressing the start button, is using smart devices but isn't a smart home. If I
can tell a central system to "clean the kitchen" and it starts the vacuum, and
when that's done dispatches the mopper, that's a smart home.

I know higher end iRobots can do this sort of thing in their dedicated app.
And if you can control that via a smart home hub then that would be smart home
functionality to me.

~~~
perl4ever
A vacuum is really easy to use; what's a real pain is _cleaning the vacuum
cleaner_. When are they going to automate _that_?

~~~
bcrosby95
It might not sound like a lot, but it saves us 15-20 minutes of cleaning per
day. We have 3 kids and get about 1-2 hours of free time per night. So its
12-33% more time to spend doing whatever we want rather than cleaning the
house.

~~~
perl4ever
Vacuuming every day strikes me as misguided, even if (especially if) you have
allergies, because the residual dust never has a chance to settle. I'm
speaking as someone who has issues with household dust much beyond most
people, and who has found even a good air purifier to be counterproductive if
used 100% of the time.

------
xitrium
This did not hold up well, imo. Not sure how to count it but by some lists
this is stuff like: Tencent, Alibaba, Amazon, Netflix, Priceline, Baidu,
Salesforce.com, JD.com.

Others would include Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, GitHub, ...

There are only a few that would qualify that I can think of - Instagram,
Snapchat, and WhatsApp.

If folks here have other examples or thoughts on why this does or doesn't hold
true would love to hear them.

~~~
alasdair_
I can see curren-gen VR and AR games leading to next-gen "real AR" glasses
with an impact on far more than just gaming.

~~~
vardump
Most VR/AR development activity I've seen seems to be about (industrial)
training.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Where it would be most _definitely_ not a toy after a few iterations.

------
throwaway66920
> Disruptive technologies are dismissed as toys because when they are first
> launched they “undershoot” user needs. The first telephone could only carry
> voices a mile or two. The leading telco of the time, Western Union, passed
> on acquiring the phone because they didn’t see how it could possibly be
> useful to businesses and railroads – their primary customers. What they
> failed to anticipate was how rapidly telephone technology and infrastructure
> would improve (technology adoption is usually non-linear due to so-called
> complementary network effects). The same was true of how mainframe companies
> viewed the PC (microcomputer), and how modern telecom companies viewed
> Skype. (Christensen has many more examples in his books).

Skype feels like a bad examples it was always fairly obvious video chat would
be prevalent eventually. It was never obvious that Skype was the best answer,
and there were Skype alternatives with similar offerings which have failed.

Skype itself may not last the long run if it can’t keep up with zoom or
whatnot.

------
appleshore
Here’s a more full account of the Western Union and Bell settlement on patent
infringement-

[http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--
wes...](http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--western-
union-patent-agreement-of-1879/)

I’m also generally skeptical of revisionist narratives. People often say no
one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc.
But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed
technologists and so on did predict these things. The hard part is building
them and then creating a system (eg financed hardware) to create widespread
adoption.

~~~
mywittyname
> People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen
> with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers,
> designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predict these
> things.

Often technologies are available long before they ever catch on with the
mainstream. There were several PDAs sold in the 90s, and at least one had a
built-in telephone. The Buick Reatta had a touch screen center stack in the
late 1980s.

Technology adoption is weird. There needs to be the perfect storm of
integration, marketing, and (for lack of a better term) zeitgeist to really
make something mainstream. And even with all those things, it still takes
YEARS to really get there. Think about how long techies were downloading TV
shows/movies before streaming really took off -- Windows Media Center came out
in 2002! That's a full six years before Netflix started its streaming service,
which itself took several years to take off.

------
grumpy8
I have a question for those who were there at the very beginning of the
internet. I heard that many were skeptical about both personal computers and
the internet.. did it feel the same as it does right now with crypto-
currency/quantum-computing? I wasn't there, but on my side, it feels like
people were able to use internet right from the beginning, whereas there's a
bigger leap to using crypto/quantum. Is it just that the infrastructure isn't
in place to allow normal people to do easy things?

~~~
svachalek
In the very beginning, it was restricted to a very, very small list of users
in the military and colleges. At the time it seemed like a very useful tool
and pretty fun to play with. The next phase was Mosaic and then Netscape
creating the web, which also felt like a pretty neat and potentially useful
toy. I remember passing around sheets of paper with URLs to type in, before
there were search engines. And then it all exploded, everyone had to have it,
and things changed a lot as the average user was both way less technical and
way less well-behaved.

Given that, blockchain may be in a similar state to the early-middle Internet.
It's out there, you can play with it, it's neat and seems useful even if for
most people that practical purpose is elusive. Maybe someone has yet to create
the Netscape that turns it into a must-have tech, but it might be happening as
we speak.

(Edit: TCP/IP came out in 1983, and HTTP in 1990. In 1995, the year of the
Netscape IPO and when everyone "knew" the web was a big deal, there were 40
million Internet users. Now there are about 32 million Bitcoin wallets. I
think some of the other answers are remembering things a bit later in time, or
more colored by hindsight.)

On the other hand, quantum is much farther out. The percentage of people who
have used a quantum computer at all is minuscule. When it does become useful,
it may be too expensive to see mass adoption for decades.

~~~
K0SM0S
> I remember passing around sheets of paper with URLs to type in, before there
> were search engines

Wow, what a throwback in time! I had completely forgotten that. Thanks for the
sweet memories!

Also, I agree with your take. One key difference re. cryptocurrencies might be
legal context however. Internet wasn't stepping on governments toes, more like
disruption of the telco sector (which was already focused on emerging mobile
at the time, a decade prior to smartphones). I'm not so sure the road is wide
open for alternative currencies, because central banks and, oh, stability of
the economy etc. It's a much tougher sell.

Blockchain itself however, the tech, may have killer-apps and uses — either as
an evolution of currencies, or decoupled entirely from 'currency' (trustless
secured distributed databases may fit many needs IMHO, notably for social
purposes like contracts or unhackable communication).

------
schnevets
I'm trying to brainstorm what I think is a "toy" in today's tech market, and I
can't think of much. Tech pundits who have seen 30 years of crazy endeavors
are taking everything overly seriously. Companies have the resolve to invest
billions in "jokes" (like Facebook Portal) stubbornly refusing to recognize a
sunk-cost fallacy.

Instagram is the most recent example of a revolutionary toy - when everyone
thought social media was a puzzle solved by Facebook, Instagram cut the fat
and became a more elegant tool to getting a message across (and making some
money in the process).

I could see Slack's fun approach to workflow automation and collaboration take
off, but maybe I'm biased by what I'm investing my own time into learning.

~~~
umeshunni
Some examples of 'toys' in today's market - AR/VR, Drones,

Another factor is that investment in tech is dramatically higher today that it
was 20 years ago (partly due to success that early investors had) and people
are willing to invest in anything that looks like a 'toy' in the off chance it
pays off.

~~~
outworlder
Are drones still considered 'toys'? At least in photography, they have long
ceased to be toys. Given that you have big companies working on them (like
amazon for deliveries), I'm wondering if they are still in the 'toy' phase.

VR is. The incremental changes are not yet enough to make them practical for
non-gaming use (and even gaming, they are amazing, but cumbersome). AR is
firmly still in the toy camp.

------
soperj
Surprised no one here has mentioned bitcoin.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1029069](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1029069)

~~~
onychomys
Fun to see that a decade ago, people were convinced that AR was going to be
the next big thing. I could see that exact same argument being made today,
nearly ten years later!

------
mch82
If you’re excited by this concept I recommend the book “Wonderland: How Play
Made the Modern World” by Steven Johnson. Fascinating stuff!

Here’s a recorded talk and more info:
[http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/jan/04/wonderland-how-
play...](http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/jan/04/wonderland-how-play-made-
modern-world/)

------
anovikov
I can't see how Skype was different in 2010 vs 2003. I mean, it provided
facility for perfect clarity voice calls over the Internet right away and that
never changed (arguably, clarity of a Skype voice call is worse now than it
used to be). And it perfectly worked over then-day Internet connections. I had
a mediocre quality dial-up in 2003 which was already long in the past for most
developed countries, and i used Skype a lot, it worked OK - and when i moved
onto 112kbps dedicated line - also considered slowish by developed countries'
standards of the day - and Skype calls were literally perfectly clear all the
time, every time. Much better than over a landline phone, if you had a
headset.

So while agreeing with the rest of the article, Skype sounds like a wrong
example. It was a total replacement for phone calls from day one. I never
made, and maybe received only about 10, calls to/from my U.S. customers since
getting on Skype, PSTN immediately lost me as a long-distance client.

------
rmason
Recently watched George Hotz on video announce his latest update for Comma.ai.
To sign up for their optional prime(?) monthly subscription account you've got
to give them your GitHub account.

Gave a friend anxious to try self-driving a link. He then asks me what is
GitHub? I explain it and he tells me, what is this some sort of tech toy? I
could tell that he began to lose interest.

I well remember talking to people about getting on the Internet in 1994 and as
soon as they found out they'd have to install a tcp/ip stack on Windows 3.1
they too soon lost interest.

I believe against all odds that Comma.ai just might be one of the eventual
winners in the self driving market. Which is crazy because they're battling
people who've invested billions of dollars. By coincidence the partner who
brought Comma.ai to Andreesen Horowitz is Chris Dixon! Coincidence?

Personally I'm just waiting for them to add support for Ford.

------
OnlineGladiator
This was the approach Anki (which recently shut down) took for robotics. I
actually had a similar idea, but whenever I went to the drawing board to make
robot toys I could never make anything that was both fun and affordable -
using videogames as a benchmark it basically always lost. I think Anki did as
close to an admirable job as you could at trying to sell robotic toys while
developing more utilitarian robots (they were working on a chore bot but it
was woefully inadequate), but they still failed pretty hard. I was always
surprised by their ability to continue to raise large sums of money (they
raised about a quarter billion in total).

There is a similar approach being taken in the eVTOL space, with Kitty Hawk
trying to develop their Heaviside as an obvious toy for the rich (single
seater, short range, "quiet"). I think people will refuse to allow so much
noise pollution in the skies, not to mention the inherent question of safety
as all these designs make _serious_ compromises to flight stability in order
to make them so lightweight and take off vertically.

There is merit to this approach though - you could certainly argue hypercars
are toys for the super rich and eventually that technology trickles down to
cheaper vehicles. But the economics around racing cars are much more
complicated, including making an entire sport (and an extremely popular one at
that) to justify the development costs. You could also argue Tesla did this,
starting with the Roadster, then the Model S, and now the Model 3. Tesla's
financials have been a source of great debate for a decade now though.

Whatever the next big thing is, I bet the media hasn't caught onto it yet. I
don't think it's VR, AR, self-driving cars, general AI, or anything else that
has already been woefully overhyped. It'll be something nobody was looking for
and the right person stumbles upon it at the right place and time.

~~~
Ancalagon
I actually think AR could still be the next big thing, once the integration
becomes seamless and the peripheral technology doesn't look ridiculous

~~~
OnlineGladiator
I'd have to try it. The question is what's the killer app? VR essentially has
3 things going for it after becoming somewhat mature - Google Earth, Beat
Saber, and porn. All are considered better in VR, but none are really "omg VR
is the future!" level of amazing (to be fair I haven't tried the porn yet so
maybe I don't realize how much I'm missing out).

The notion of having a HUD for my eyes everywhere I go sounds neat at first,
until I think about it a bit more and it just seems like sensory overload. I
can always just pull out my phone if there's something I want to know, and
that thing is already pretty invasive when it comes to my daily living - do I
really need something more than that?

When it happens, we'll know. The iPhone was famously expected to be such a
failure that Verizon refused to be a carrier. Microsoft also joked about Apple
being able to make a smart phone. Blackberry felt the same way. The only
company that took them seriously was Google with Android.

Out of curiosity, what is it you think AR will revolutionize? What do you
consider the killer app?

~~~
dan_mctree
A possible killer app might be something for business meetings. Videocalls are
already a huge thing, but many feel like they're missing some real personal
intimacy in there. If instead of a videocall, you could all be using AR to see
each other walk around in front of you, that might make it a whole lot more
appealing. If it's done right, you could have the same private one on one side
conversations that are common in real life, but just in some AR space.

AR has a clear advantage over VR here as you wouldn't be blind to your real
surroundings so you'd still be able to talk with the people in real life too
(and not look like a doofus who walks into walls)

------
coldtea
> _The reason big new things sneak by incumbents is that the next big thing
> always starts out being dismissed as a “toy.” This is one of the main
> insights of Clay Christensen’s “disruptive technology” theory. This theory
> starts with the observation that technologies tend to get better at a faster
> rate than users’ needs increase._

Or perhaps new technologies are solutions in search of a problem, and without
any concrete sense of self and hierarchy, user "needs" can get artificially
inflated to infinity...

Kind of how people "needed" cigarettes in 1950, and "needed" bell bottoms in
the 70s, and "need" a good smartphone camera today (because of course they
also "need" to broadcast to their friends and everybody else what they ate for
dinner, their latest selfie, and their life 24/7) -- even if nobody on the
receiving end really cares, except perhaps their parents and grandparents...

------
ctdonath
Observation: "comic book" movies today are largely not suitable for non-
teenage children (practically all rated PG-13). What was literary version of
"toy" is now 9-digit-budget blockbusters.

~~~
aidenn0
FWIW, my son is in 3rd grade and most of his peer group (8-9yo) has seen at
least some of the MCU movies.

------
growlist
This made me think of disparaging comments from ESA about SpaceX:

'Asked about how the Ariane 5 compares to lower-cost alternatives on the
market today, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, Stefano Bianchi, Head of ESA
Launchers Development Department, responded with a question of his own. “Are
you buying a Mercedes because it is cheap?”

Ranzo, sitting nearby, chimed in and referenced the India-based maker of the
world’s least expensive car. As he put it, “We don’t sell a Tata.”'

~~~
AstralStorm
But whoever makes that Fiat Ducato or equivalent for space will make big bank.
Different markets warrant different solutions, including custom.

~~~
growlist
Agreed, but lower cost access to space could also change the game itself. If
launch costs are 1/10 or 1/100 what they are now, your bespoke $100m
absolutely-cannot-fail-at-all-costs satellite can similarly be blown away by
satellites that can be built without the super-expensive verification required
to make them infallible. Just build them cheap and good enough and if/when
they fail, throw up another.

------
dawg-
Video games will always show what's next. Gaming companies are developing the
expertise at constructing virtual worlds, with rules that engage and immerse
users, that will be essential to the popularization of VR. VR will go
mainstream under the umbrella of gaming before it's used in any practical
sense. It's the same way computers went mainstream, and I bet video games will
spawn whatever comes after VR as well.

------
hyperpallium
Most toys remain toys...

I really like Clay Christenen's ideas, but he dismissed the greatest recent
disruption (smartphones) as "sustaining"... His theories are not predictive.

What actual toys _are_ there? Especially new ones. def toy:
fun/enjoyable/popular but useless.

video games (e.g. minecraft, pubg), social media (stackexchange, reddit, meme-
makers), scooters, fidget spinners, drones, 3D printers, face swaps, shadertoy

------
awicklander
This makes me think of Fortnite. What if Fortnite, and the impact it's going
to have on us, is yet but a tiny baby?

~~~
kgwxd
You must not have school-aged kids, Fortnite is already dead.

~~~
kevinventullo
You sure about that? It currently has the second-highest viewership on Twitch,
topped only by League of Legends (which is surprisingly almost a decade old).

~~~
kgwxd
It was mostly a joke for people with school-aged kids. At least in my kids
school, and what r/memes seems to reflect around the world, is they all say
it's "trash" and Minecraft is the thing again. I think they all still play it,
it's just cool to say it's not cool. However, a lot of them seem to have
stopped buying V-bucks, at least to get skins.

------
ETHisso2017
Tiktok comes to mind. Maybe drones as well

------
myth_buster
This was my thought regarding Google's Soli chip[0] when I saw comments
talking about it's usability limited to cooking or other fringe cases.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877)

~~~
oscargrouch
The chip has potential to change the way we live, but this potential will only
become reality when proper applications and bussiness models create really
useful stuff around it.

I think seeing this tech as disruptive somehow is kind of obvious, but to
change our lifes upside down it needs much more.

The same can be said about 3D printing. It has a lot of potential, but timing
+ the right ecosystem around it is also a big deal.

Apple with Newton, MS and specially Palm were there first for the pocket
computer + phone, but why only with the iPhone things started to really
happen?

The right bet + timing + ecosystem around it is also pretty important.

------
sailpro
Thats an interesting topic and an evergreen article as every few years we can
try and observe the landscape of up and coming toys. Some candidates:

Drones Bitcoin Electric Scooters VR AR Voice recognition (Alexa, Siri, OK
Google) 3d printer Robotics

what else?

------
thorwasdfasdf
I hope the next big thing will move atoms around.

I think bits are very limiting. My Iphone, no matter how good the apps are,
will never be able to get up and clean up the kitchen, or build me a house for
that matter.

------
ianai
Aren’t atomic bombs a counter example to this? Though maybe an example that
proves the trend. There’s a strong connection between nuclear power failures
and political push back.

------
k__
PCs, Smartphones, the Web, JavaScript... All things that helped me making a
good living.

------
segmondy
kubernetes didn't start out looking like a toy. nor did tensorflow or kafka
nor ipod / iphone nor spacex nor tesla

unless looks like a toy is relative to the incumbents, but not to the
population at large.

~~~
mch82
In “Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World” the toy as predictor concept
is explored more deeply.

The emphasis is less on the implementation of the toy than on the popularity
of the style of play or human amusement that the toy enables. Then over time
various technologies come along to implement the mode of play. Eventually
someone says, wow that might help in serious adult activity X. And then
disruption.

Kubernetes, Tensorflow, Kafka, Falcon 9, iPhone, and Model S aren’t toys.

Video game AI, model rockets, iPod (limited to music playback), and RC cars
are toys that predicted these modern, serious adult innovations.

The toy as predictor theory doesn’t require that all technologies begin as
toys. So maybe Kubernetes & Kafka don’t fit (I can’t think of a relevant toy).

------
wenbin
Ten years later... it's still very true :)

~~~
dwd
There are some interesting user comments like one guy who talked up Google
Search compared to Yahoo and AOL and how it gave you what you wanted and sent
you on your way and didn't try to keep you on site indefinitely.

How things change and end up repeating the same old mistakes.

------
perl4ever
Remember 3D TV?

------
dredmorbius
Or weapons / military hardware.

------
peter998
Am I the only one thinking of WebAssembly? (e.g.
[https://wasmer.io](https://wasmer.io) )

------
SandersAK
healthcare?

~~~
smacktoward
Possibly the absolute last market sector where you want people thinking of
their products as toys.

~~~
guptaneil
Wearables started off looking like toys, but are poised to drastically change
how we think about health. The whole point of this argument is that the next
big thing will come out of left field, not that you should build toys to try
to solve a major problem.

------
viach
Imo if a statement about the future doesn't contain word "probably" \- it is
probably wrong.

~~~
AznHisoka
probably.. suppose... it seems to me.. I hate it when people try and hedge
their opinions.

~~~
alecbenzer
Why? Hedging is fine. I think it's important to accurately communicate how
certain you are of a thing. Constant hedging is annoying, but so is stating
everything as if it's a fact, despite how sure you really are.

Communicating confidence is useful.

~~~
AznHisoka
I totally agree. My beef was with people using vague words like "probably".
What does probably mean? 51% likely? 55% likely? 90% likely? It contains no
sense of probability, that can be agreed upon.

If you're going to attach a probability to an opinion, use "most likely", or
"almost certainly", or "unlikely".

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ojbyrne
Mods: Please put (2010) in the title.

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feross
Fixed!

