

Marc Andreessen:'Every Single Idea From The Dotcom Era Was Correct' - npguy
http://statspotting.com/2012/12/every-single-idea-from-the-dotcom-era-was-correct/

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arthurrr
I just wish that the guy who did the browser did a better job. I agree with
Alan Kay when he said "the Internet was done so well that most people think of
it as a natural resource", and "The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was
done by amateurs."[1]

Here's an idea: Let's fix the web. I'm not talking about Web 3.0. Let's
actually _fix_ the web. Let's get rid of the browser. Let's stop building
stuff on top of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, all of this so-called "technology".
Let's fix the foundation first. And let's try to get it right this time.

I'm tired of my computer with 4gb of ram, 2 ghz processor slowing to a crawl
whenever I open the browser, to the point where I'm reminded of typing over a
2400 baud connection.

Anybody know if it's possible to get the old Xerox Star OS running in an
emulator? That seems like it might be a good place to start.

[1][http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-
wit...](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-with-alan-
kay/240003442)

~~~
jbri
What browser are you using, and what websites are you visiting? Because one of
the two is the cause of your slowing-to-a-crawl, and if you want to vote with
your wallet you should start with that before throwing away the entire web
ecosystem.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
It's not necessarily just one of them that's responsible for the poor
performance. It could easily be both. Running bad JavaScript using a bad
interpreter leads to awful performance.

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michaelpinto
Having been part of that era I think the biggest problem was the lack of
broadband for home users. We'd be sitting in our offices with a T1 line and
only a small fraction of folks were even using 56k dial up modems, so the only
folks looking at sites were other folks in offices with T1 connections. What's
funny is that broadband started to really take off right after the dot.com
bust around 2002 which was a gap of a year or two.

~~~
diminish
basically, dial-up modems made the internet access a on/off cumbersome
service. broadband routers and wifi provided an always-on internet at homes.
this was the main actor for post-2003 boost, i guess.

~~~
michaelpinto
Imagine only having one landline in your house before the era of cell phones:
You have to use that one line to go on the internet, so if anyone calls you
they get a busy signal. Yes if you were a geek you'd get that extra phone line
like I did, but most normal people didn't do that. Having a 24/7 live net
connection changes everything.

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rdl
pmarca is much more correct on this than fredwilson. I think there were some
dotcom ideas which were inherently bad even skill (beanz/flooz...a fully
closed, non-convertible currency for the web is silly; a more open system is
reasonable, which is what causes the limited success of bitcoin so far).

But the ideas were rarely the cause of failure of those companies; it was the
execution. Webvan was an awesome idea; they just seriously fucked up execution
by overbuilding on capital equipment (warehouses) and expanding to areas which
were inherently unsuitable for early launch (anywhere where anyone rich enough
to be a good customer had a car and drove daily anyway).

~~~
patrickk
Tesco (<http://www.tesco.com/>) has applied the Webvan strategy, except in
reverse - start with a chain of stores, and add the online and home delivery
element later. They have the brand loyalty, the consumer attention and the
infrastructure - so adding the online element is an obvious next step. Seems
to be working out well for them.

(Tesco also tried to expand to the US but failed:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/09/fresh-not-
eas...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/09/fresh-not-easy-tesco-
british-failure-america))

~~~
rdl
I think the "pay a higher per-order cost to have a human pick items from the
shelves at the grocery" (which was also the strategy of Safeway) is the best
way to enter the market.

Webvan could have justified a big warehouse in markets like SFBA once they had
demand.

I didn't realize Tesco had folded; I thought they were doing a partnership
with Safeway or something. I guess I didn't watch US grocery stores much
2003-2010.

(I wish I hadn't lost the 30 webvan crates I'd accumulated in the whole
Sealand/HavenCo thing. They were awesome. I also bought a few of the Napster
servers at auction and used them for a few years.)

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MojoJolo
If that's the case, can a founder who failed in the dotcom era repeats his
idea and might be successful?

~~~
npguy
If we can find an example of this, it would be awesome.

~~~
rdl
Dodgeball/Foursquare is the canonical example. dens is relentless. (dodgeball
wasn't so much a failure, but was a smaller success than 4sq to date)

I hope the things I did/failed at during dotcom (a datahaven beyond the reach
of nation-states, and electronic cash) end up being things I can do
successfully in the future.

~~~
npguy
Great example. demonstrates the fact that if you keep solving problems in one
domain / area, one day you will solve a really painful problem profitably

~~~
rdl
Maybe -- it's not clear that 4sq is a winner, but if there were any single
person who I would bet on coming up with a profitable mobile location service,
it would be him. If not 4sq, whatever he does next.

~~~
TillE
As far as I can tell, Foursquare has basically pivoted to become a Yelp
competitor. I was excited about it initially because I thought they were going
to do cool things to enable real-world socialization, but there's really none
of that now. It's all about the places, not the people.

It's going to take a completely new approach to make location-based social
networking a world changer like Facebook was.

~~~
rdl
From what I've read, ingress might be version 0.01 of that. I don't have an
android device to try it out though.

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magnusgraviti
In my opinion it hugely depends on idea implementation. Good team with bad
idea can turn it in a profitable business and the opposite.

------
sublimit
I'm with Wilson on this, and I hate this sort of rhetoric in general, so I'm
frustrated to see Hacker News eating it up time and time again. It's not
thought-provoking to make claims that everyone knows are plain absurd. I
understand Andreessen may not literally mean this and instead has some
underlying points about innovations in the Dotcom era, but then he should just
say them straight.

All this is good for is making some easy views with an "inciting" blogspam
title - which the authors were clearly relying on, as the article doesn't have
much substance beyond the quotes.

