

2013 was a lost year for tech - svenkatesh
http://qz.com/161443/2013-was-a-lost-year-for-tech/

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swalsh
I feel like the "defining aspects" of a decade come halfway through. So the
80's to me really took place between 85-95, the 90's between 95-2005, and the
naughts 05-15. I think we're closing up the current "themes" of the last
decade, web 2.0, social media, mobile ubiquity etc.

There's also glimpses of what's going to define the teens, right now it seems
like the augmented world might be a big theme. Things like Google Glass, VR
like oculus, and maybe the beginning of drones and robots such as googles
driverless car. Honestly though, the biggest things are still in labs. They're
ideas who's time is tantalizingly close. I'd bet some really big things
happened this year, maybe by people a part of this community, but they're not
ready for the tech news to hype up or to shit on yet.

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parrotdoxical
"Not a single breakthrough product was unveiled"

Probably the most damning line in the piece. It was indeed a year marked by
cryptocurrency mania, NSA scandals, and worst of all, mediocre tech. Anyone
think 2014 is going to be any different?

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svenkatesh
I think so. It seems like cryptocurrencies are getting to the point where
they're being utilized (as opposed to being used mostly for speculation) in
consumer-facing businesses.

The NSA stuff is concerning, but I get the impression that businesses are
working on creating secure and trustless infrastructure.

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thekaleb
Smells a little like link-bait.

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adventured
Bitcoin wouldn't have been listed by any major press as a breakthrough
product/service the year it became public, either. Few were paying attention.

Let's hold off on the proclamations about 2013 being a dead year for
breakthroughs. It's entirely plausible the biggest breakthrough for 2013 still
isn't widely known. Some products require scale before it becomes overly
apparent the dramatic impact they're going to have, and or before network
effects take hold that said product may require to truly kick into another
gear.

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michaelochurch
_Let 's hold off on the proclamations about 2013 being a dead year for
breakthroughs._

The truth about technology is that "breakthroughs" are backed by a long,
mostly invisible, period of hard work.

Has it been a "lost year" for technology? No, because millions of people have
gone to work, built things, learned stuff, and there's a little more value in
the world than there was before. Has it been a terrible year in terms of the
high-profile idiocy that occurs, without fail, when the wrong sorts of people
get into technology's upper echelons? Absolutely. But that's a cyclical
phenomenon and doesn't really make the case for a year that has been
completely wasted, any more than winter is a waste of time.

