
Every tech downturn has a silver lining - spatters
https://om.co/2020/05/24/why-every-tech-downturn-has-a-silver-lining/
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bawolff
> My bet is always-on broadband. Virtual worlds, digital entertainment, gaming
> …. None of it would be possible without broadband. Today, we have about
> 100-250 Mbps in most modern homes. In some places, you can get a gigabit per
> second. Now imagine what we could do if, in ten years, we all have 10
> gigabits per second in our homes, and we have in-home networks that are fast
> and fat.

Hmm. Kind of an interesting take. I predict the opposite. I think we have hit
the diminishing returns on bandwidth. People don't even know what to do with
residential internet in the 100mbps. We can stream HD video (both up and
down)...what else is there. If there are no applications straining at
bandwidth limits now, im not sure improving them will make new products. If
anything i think the best gains are going to be in latency and in mobile
bandwidth. Cheap high speed, no data cap, internet for cell phones would be
pretty great. But still i'd consider that incremental. I think its unlikely
the next big technology enabler will be the same as the last one.

> In 2001, we imagined a 100 Mbps future — and we got Google, a nearly
> trillion-dollar company.

Google was founded in 1998, and that was still the dial-up era. At the time, I
was probably thinking a 1mbps future sounded pretty grand and couldn't imagine
100mbps. Heck my internet right now isn't even that fast.

~~~
jordanthoms
I'd settle for IP-based video conferencing that actually works, 100% of the
time. As far as I can tell the major issues with that now are more from WiFi -
Bufferbloat is particularly bad there and interference causes small dropouts
(run a ping to a local router in the background for a while, and you'll
probably see jitter eventually).

It's pretty noticeable here in New Zealand where most people are now on fiber
connections with easily enough bandwidth and low latency - but video calling
is still way harder than it should be.

~~~
jack1243star
> IP-based video conferencing that actually works, 100% of the time.

This is oxymoron. Our packet-switched infra simply cannot fulfill such
promise.

~~~
bawolff
That's a bit pedantic - the poster would cleary be happy with something that
worked 99.9% of the time, and there is no technical reason why our packet
switched network can't suppot that in theory

~~~
EdJiang
For all the net-neutrality proponents: isn't this an argument against net
neutrality? If ISPs could discriminate depending on traffic and apply better
QoS priorities to sensitive content like video calls, reprioritizing downloads
and p2p applications, we could have video conferencing that works, 99.9% of
the time.

~~~
ryukafalz
No. The FCC's 2015 open internet order had an exemption for "reasonable
network management":

>A network management practice is a practice that has a primarily technical
network management justification, but does not include other business
practices. A network management practice is reasonable if it is primarily used
for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management purpose, taking
into account the particular network architecture and technology of the
broadband Internet access service.

Net neutrality has always been about leveling the playing field, not about
preventing network operators from improving service for users. So, for
example: QoS rules to make real-time communication work better in general?
Great! QoS rules to prioritize Zoom over other real-time comms because the ISP
has a deal with them? Nope.

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nayuki
Related:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html)
"Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy"

~~~
reload01
Really appropriate timing for this thanks!

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bawolff
> Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield might be a household name today, but in
> 2001

'Kay. Maybe in your household.

Is this really a tech downturn? Yes, some companies are laying people off,
with gig-economy things particularly hard hit, but the entire economy is a
mess right now. It doesn't seem like tech is relatively more affected than
other industries.

I do agree with the general premise that a bubble bursting is like a forest
fire clearing away all the bullshit (along with many people's livlihood), and
the current tech industry has a lot of BS ripe for being cleared away.

~~~
gkoberger
Would be better worded as "Slack, co-founded by Stewart Butterfield, might be
a household name today, but in 2001[...]"

~~~
bawolff
Slack is certainly more well known than its founder, but neither are household
names unless you live in silicon valley.

As an example, have you ever watched a movie where someone uses slack? I
haven't. Have you ever seen a movie where someone uses google (or some
rebranded website that's obviously a google stand-in)? Of course you have.
That's what a household name is.

Edit: also if it was rephrased that way the rest of the paragraph wouldn't
make sense because they're discussing slack's founder well known-ness, not
slack.

~~~
gkoberger
I think, for the sake of this article, you could consider Slack a household
name. It doesn't mean everyone has heard of it, it just means "well-known".
It's a publicly traded company, and I'd say the average person (especially in
America) likely knows what it is.

I guess I don't really watch many movies that delve into 21st-century office
communication, but I imagine if I did their chat app would be modeled after
Slack.

Overall, though, this is a minor point compared to the rest of the article.

~~~
oap
The average person definitely doesn't know. I've met wealthy people in their
20s in LA who don't know who Elon Musk is. Attention is hyper fractionalized.

People know who Jeff Bezos is, people don't know Tim Cook.

~~~
TomMarius
No one around me knows who Bezos is, but everyone knows Musk - the guy with
the Teslas and rockets is kinda hard to forget, but Amazon doesn't even have a
localized website here...

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adamcharnock
> My bet is always-on broadband. Virtual worlds, digital entertainment, gaming
> …. None of it would be possible without broadband. Today, we have about
> 100-250 Mbps in most modern homes.

I’m literally sat in a bank right now opening a bank account for my new ISP
company [1], so this is nice to hear!

I’m hoping to deliver speeds of around 100Mbit to the rather rural area of
Portugal I live in.

[1]: [https://gardunha.net](https://gardunha.net)

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metrokoi
Yes, the downturn may result in new technology and ideas, but almost all of
them would have been possible without the pandemic. This article seems to be
speculating a bit to find positives. Many of us are privileged to not be as
worried about finances, but for the vast majority of Americans this is nothing
like a snowday, as the author puts it. Some times are simply not as good as
others, and that's okay.

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troughway
After scrolling about 200vh or so for no good reason.

>I remember feeling under a pall of gloom, going about with a dark cloud over
my soul and tears in my eyes.

A little bit melodramatic, but okay.

>The disparity between America’s haves and have-nots has been laid bare. The
inefficiency of our legislators has made us the laughing stock of the planet
(so much so that an opinion writer at the Irish Times even felt pity for
America).

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even The Irish Times.

>Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield might be a household name today

Other comments covered this nonsense.

>To be clear, those being laid off are previously pampered full-time employees
and not the gig workers who are treated as disposables by these big companies.

> Yes, the future is unknown and it is worrying, but pause for a minute and
> think about what the future of work looks like: less peer pressure and
> office politics, less need to run around looking pretty or showing up to
> show you’re there no need to chase crazy trends and shiny objects, and a lot
> less emphasis on working just to make sure people see you working.

The latter statement can only apply to the former if the "You" is a "pampered
full-time employee". Because I doubt the "gig workers" have seen what office
politics look like.

So then, what's the point of this statement?

Rest of the article tries to imagine a future that ignores evolutionary
biology, the need for people to connect through more than just a virtual
presence, and proclaims we live in the past.

Lastly the "have and have nots" bullshit tirade is nicely wrapped up by the
author mentioning they're an angel investor for Slack.

~~~
bawolff
Oh, the author is an angel investor in slack! I guess that explains the
household name thing. I was originally just assuming some extreme version of
living in the silicon valley filter bubble.

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joelbluminator
Are we actually in the midst of a tech downturn though? I mean tech valuation
are back to what they were pre corona pretty much. Did VC money completely dry
up?

~~~
FartyMcFarter
IBM has laid people off. Some companies like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb laid off a
lot of tech people (even if the extent of their status as "tech" companies is
questionable).

Some governments are pledging support to startups, which is indicative of some
trouble: [https://sifted.eu/articles/startups-government-
support/](https://sifted.eu/articles/startups-government-support/)

Anecdotally, I'm also hearing that startups are having a hard time finding
funding, which isn't surprising in the current cautious financial climate.

~~~
joelbluminator
Yes, I hear the anecdotes as well. I guess a lot depends on what happens in
the fall/winter corona-wise. If it declines and doesn't come back you could
make the case for a relatively quick recovery.

