
Stupid Apps and Changing the World - dmnd
http://blog.samaltman.com/stupid-apps-and-changing-the-world
======
adamzerner
> Facebook, Twitter, reddit, the Internet itself, the iPhone, and on and on
> and on—most people dismissed these things as incremental or trivial when
> they first came out.

With the exception of the internet itself, I think they still are. Are we
really that much happier with our social media and iPhones than we are without
them? I think that for the most part, the answer is no. Most use is
superficial and procrastination rather than meaningful connection with people.

Check out The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook. He talks about how we've
made all of this "progress" in our standard of living, but that it isn't
actually making us happier.

However, I agree with the central idea that "toys" are often dismissed
prematurely.

~~~
josu
Twitter and Facebook have changed the world; I don't have a doubt about it.
And not only in a micro scale, also in a macro level.

I have gone from writing letters to my distant friends, to writing them
emails, to writing them facebook messages. And believe it's much easier to
keep in touch with friends now that there is facebook. If I travel to LA I can
go to FB and check out who moved to LA in the last few years and actually meet
them. Had I been in the email era, I wouldn't have had any idea of who was in
LA. This is just a minor example for how facebook has changed the world on a
personal level.

When it comes to the big picture, look at the Arab uprising, it used the
social networks heavily. We don't know what would have happened without
Facebook or Twitter, but my guess is that not much. But you don't have to go
to developing countries to see the effects of the social networks on politics
and society in general. [1] This is a graph of the Spanish bipartisanship
going down the drain after May 15th, 2011(15M/Spanish revolution)[2]. The
movement started on Twitter, and slowly moved to Facebook.

So these "toys" are changing the world, both on a micro and macro level, and
denying that is like denying that TV changed how people view wars.

[1]
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuWphzlCUAAdwqX.png:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuWphzlCUAAdwqX.png:large)

[2]
[http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_15-M](http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_15-M)

~~~
adamzerner
You've mentioned a few examples of how social media is having a positive
impact on the world. And after thinking about it some, I think I
underestimated how big an impact they have. I still think the proportion of
the usage that is meaningful is low, but given the huge _amount_ of usage, it
has lead to a pretty decent amount of meaningful interaction.

But what about the downsides? I don't have too strong an opinion and can't
argue it well, but I do suspect that social media has its downsides, and that
has to play into the equation. Something along the lines of "kids in the
neighborhood used to all play outside together and now they're inside
gossiping on social media".

~~~
scott_s
I bet there are downsides. But there were also downsides when every home got a
telephone. And when everyone started carrying cellphones.

My point is that new technology which changes the way humans communicate with
each other is a phenomenon that has played out many times in the past few
centuries.

~~~
heroh
>And when everyone started carrying cellphones.

in 1984 George Orwell talks about TeleScreens,

Here's a little excerpt from wikipedia:

>"Telescreens are fictional devices which operate as both televisions and
security cameras....telescreens are used by the ruling Party in Oceania to
keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thus eliminating the chance of
secret conspiracies against Oceania. All members of the Inner Party (upper-
class) and Outer Party (middle-class) have telescreens in their homes, but the
proles (lower-class) are not typically monitored as they are unimportant to
the Party."

now consider recent NSA revelations (dragnet surveillance) including:
[http://www.wired.com/2014/07/nsa-targets-users-of-privacy-
se...](http://www.wired.com/2014/07/nsa-targets-users-of-privacy-services/)

Cellphones are __Telescreens __... they are a source of entertainment for most
(like TV) and function as security cameras -- with your location and data
connectivity being constantly logged, complete with backdoors which allow full
remote access.

The middle class is being destroyed ([http://time.com/money/2917709/wealth-
inequality-doubled-over...](http://time.com/money/2917709/wealth-inequality-
doubled-over-last-10-years-study-finds/)) and anyone who opposes the party
will be subject to indefinite detention (NDAA) or wiped out.

Apps are primarily a distraction mechanism and social networks are services
which profile every aspect of an individuals life, data which can and will be
mined and used against you if you commit a thought-crime.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/technology/15twitter.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/technology/15twitter.html)

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/7/5878069/why-facebook-is-
bea...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/7/5878069/why-facebook-is-beating-the-
fbi-at-facial-recognition)

Try and stop _them_ : www.cnbc.com/id/101669271

~~~
ml_da
> anyone who opposes the party will be subject to indefinite detention (NDAA)
> or wiped out.

Then why are you and countless other people like you allowed to post your
alarmist b.s all over every day? Try moving to north korea and posting against
the government, if you want to know what being in a totalitarian state is
really like.

------
TeMPOraL
It's actually quite simple - Silicon Valley nowdays is an engine of _money
making_ , not _technological progress_. Those two values are correlated with
each other, albeit not perfecly, and I'd hazard a guess that they are becoming
more and more disconnected. So SV is optimizing for profit, and it's easier to
make money by doing stupid throwaway stuff than by doing something actually
useful.

Also things seem to have changed in the last few years; profit and usefulness
are becoming visibly more disconnected. Startups nowdays lie about their
"products" \- the goal of New App X is _not_ to be useful for you (the
user/customer). Any actual use is a lie used to get userbase growth. When the
"product" has enough users, it gets slaughtered, the team lands dream jobs,
money changes hands, and everyone _except the users_ is happy.

~~~
FD3SA
Meant to upvote you but may have fudged it. You've hit the nail precisely on
the head. SV is now a well oiled machine for taking ideas and turning them
into money for investors via IPOs. Technology and "saving the world" have got
nothing to do with it, other than being convenient tools and marketing to
achieve the primary goal of money making.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Why would we blame Silicon Valley for this? Silicon Valley largely builds
problems that solve issues for Silicon Valley.

This isn't a bad thing, it just means that we have to decentralize the
concentration of developers and entrepreneurs from one concentrated physical
location.

If only there were a way for people to communicate at large distances with
each other in an interconnected way....like a network of devices or something.

------
quaunaut
Kinda exactly what I needed this week. Every time I go on HN, Reddit, really
much of anywhere all I see are people bitching and moaning about the most
inane things, criticizing products for not being something they were never
intended to be, or tearing into decisions for being idiotic when it's pretty
obvious someone's hand was forced.

The last paragraph is important. As much as I've enjoyed being on HN the past
few years, and Reddit the past 8, I'm fairly close to swearing myself off of
them entirely so I can focus better without rampant discouragement for the
sake of the commenter's ego.

~~~
minimaxir
> _criticizing products for not being something they were never intended to
> be, or tearing into decisions for being idiotic when it 's pretty obvious
> someone's hand was forced._

The inverse, where everything is positive and criticism is ignored, is just as
bad, if not _worse_.

The fact that we may not be able to predict the next big thing does not give
everything immunity from critique.

~~~
quaunaut
There's a pretty obvious difference though between criticism for the sake of
stroking your own ego, and criticism as a means of trying to better a product
or legitimately point out its flaws. One introduces better conversation,
another one is crowding around something to be kicked.

~~~
StandardFuture
I believe it's called: Constructive Criticism.

------
larrik
Am I the only who still see Twitter as useless and trivial? Facebook has some
undeniable values inside it's veneer of nonsense, such as out-of-state-Grandma
getting to see the grandkids grow rather than waiting for holidays/care
packages that may never come. Twitter, though, has never struck me as serving
any use than as a shitty RSS feed for celebrities (including 'celebrities' in
your field).

~~~
gfodor
Yes, you're probably one of the only ones. The ability for Twitter to allow
people (and machines) to quickly share information and allow it to go viral
has certainly changed the world. The fact that the instant anything happens in
the world there is a record of it on Twitter speaks enough about the impact it
has.

~~~
giarc
OP has never heard of the Arab Spring.

~~~
larrik
I remember it, but I also remember Twitter's contribution to it be largely
overblown PR.

------
coldtea
> _People often accuse people in Silicon Valley of working on things that
> don’t matter. Often they’re right. But many very important things start out
> looking as if they don’t matter_

Not really. And the counter-examples he gives either didn't look trivial at
first (the iPhone: actually everyone gapsed upon its introduction), or aren't
really "world changing" (Facebook, Twitter: just some social networks _).

_ As for the "Arab Spring" thing. Revolutions happened all the time without
them. There were huge movements and shakedowns throughout the sixties,
seventies and eighties, including in the Arab world (Iranian revolution
anyone?). It's mostly Silicon Valley and western media bullshitting that made
some believe Twitter et co role in Egypt etc was "crucial". Plus it's easy to
make starts out of the few Egyptians who tweet etc, and are usually of the
more affluent and easier to talk to the press classes).

~~~
keerthiko
I find it quite mindblowing that people on HN can dismiss Facebook/Twitter as
"just some social networks" that aren't "world changing".

Maybe you are all high and mighty and don't use "just some social networks",
but they have definitely changed the world, in HUGE ways. I would say
facebook's global permeation (circa 2009) is probably the most world-changing
thing since global consumer internet availability (approx 1998?).

Just the other day, we on HN watched as a hotel business most likely crumbled
because of worldwide attention on such social media [1]. Similarly, entire
businesses are livelihoods are being built upon being visible on facebook.
News travels like wildfire, opinions can make CEOs step down, a viral video
can turn a beginner musician into a contemporary sensation, the list is
endless.

How does one deny that these things have changed the world compared to before?
They may not be all good changes, or any of them good changes, but they have
changed the world, in huge ways, and we had best learn to accept it and take
it into account in our lives.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131162)

Edited to actually add link.

~~~
fred_durst
Because news already traveled like wildfire. Its just didn't make it out to
the people who weren't actually involved as often as it does now.

------
eliben
I'm having a hard time understanding what he means by "hyperexponential". If N
grows exponentially and there's some function of N that's O(N^2), it's still
exponential.

He can't mean the hyperexponential probability distribution, that's something
different.

~~~
pzxc
I think he was using that word not as a technical term, but as a way of saying
"even faster/sharper than exponential". I.e., hyper- (the prefix meaning
above) + exponential.

Certainly O(N^2) is not at the top of the food chain -- for example, it is
beaten by O(2^N) or O(N!) or O(N^N). All of these could, colloquially, be
referred to as "hyper"exponential.

Imagine a hockey stick graph (exponential). Now imagine that hockey stick
graphed on a logarithmic scale -- the logarithms more or less cancel out the
exponentiation if done right, making the graph appear to be linear even though
the data is exponential. Now, imagine data that, even when graphed on a
logarithmic scale, _still_ looks like a hockey stick. _That_ is
hyperexponential.

And I think I just proved Sam's point -- that it is hard to visualize/grok.

~~~
chimtim
O(N^2) is not exponential but just polynomial. O(2^N) is still exponential.
O(N!) and O(N^N) are faster than exponential but not that much; O(N^N) grows
slower than O(N!)[1].

Hyper-exponential is most likely double exponential O(a^b^N). There is an
exponential growth of apps on these platforms and another exponential growth
of users on these apps.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling's_approximation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling's_approximation)

------
finishingmove
"Facebook, Twitter, reddit, the Internet itself, the iPhone, and on and on and
on—most people dismissed these things as incremental or trivial when they
first came out."

So, are Facebook and the iPhone bettering the world right now?

~~~
tannerc
In many ways, yes.

In foreign countries (not first world), Facebook has persisted as a primary
means of communication; including finding lost relatives or friends and
connecting people who have lost someone or something during catastrophic
events. There's a lot of additional ways other countries are using the
technology that we, here in the US, haven't dreamed of: setting up stores and
selling things via Instagram, forming action groups and protest events on
Facebook, etc.

The iPhone helps in many of those same instances, by connecting people to
resources and other individuals.

Can there be simpler ways to accomplish the same goals? Absolutely! But the
argument isn't to say these technologies are the be-all end-all. Instead, the
point is to make it clear that these technologies can absolutely do good for
the world if used to do so.

Just because you and I use Facebook to stalk our exes doesn't mean it's a
useless tool for good.

------
pinkyand
While there are many useless critics, i wonder - was it really that hard to
imagine Facebook("the identity layer of the web"),Reddit("democratic
news"),The internet("duh") or smartphones("The versatility of computing,
everywhere") becoming valuable under the condition that everybody uses them ?
Doesn't seem so.

But there are many apps, that even under that condition, that it would be hard
to imagine any unique value over what we have today, And do warrant criticism
.

~~~
scott_s
I think you're suffering from hindsight bias. Less than two years ago, I was
still explaining to people that the emergence of online social networks is a
Big Deal.

~~~
pinkyand
This is not hindsight. At the beginning of those products, at least some
people described it that way.

~~~
scott_s
Based on the content of the article, and you language you used, I assumed you
were wondering if it really was hard _for most people_ to imagine the impact
of things like Facebook, Reddit, smartphones and the internet. Not that there
was a small number of people who did, but most people. And for all of those
technologies, I think the answer is, yes, it _was_ hard for most people.

~~~
pinkyand
When reading the article , i was thinking more about the criticisms we hear at
hacker news. People here are not "most people" and can have vision, but still
there's a lot of criticisms about useless apps.

But maybe i read the article wrong.

------
sayemm
This reminds me of one of PG's old essays, "The Power of the Marginal" \-
[http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html)

People never see disruption coming and by its very nature, the best contrarian
value investments will always be dismissed, and overlooked, by insiders early
on. And probably the same is true of the founders behind them.

WhatsApp and Jan Koum are perfect examples of this.

~~~
idlewords
"The best contrarian value investments will always be dismissed, and
overlooked" is a tautology.

------
StandardFuture
The value of a piece of tech is not determined by the number of users, but by
a change in the quality-of-life a user of the technology receives. Meaning
"value" varies from individual to individual. Companies should focus on the
individuals that they bring the most value too.

Probably what pisses people off about the "arrogance" of companies like
Facebook is in their _claims_ of bringing value to everyone (who uses their
product -- and sometimes beyond). Which is not true (and _is_
arrogant/obnoxious). Also, Facebook is not the only company to have this
attitude.

Companies building something for the long-term are certainly not claiming
value for anyone in the present (SpaceX is not claiming to be significant in
your life now). But once their inventions (rockets, cures, transportation,
etc.) are actually bringing benefits to the mass majority of humanity, then
they have the right to brag.

But, the climatic 'era of benefit' from an invention usually comes after the
inventors/founders have died. Edison's and Tesla's ambitions bring far more
value today then they did in their time. On the other hand, Facebook will very
likely 'die as a fad' within 5-10 years. In other words, the greatest
figures/companies (should) appear very humble in their day.

So did Facebook change humanity? Did Reddit change Humanity? Yes, they are a
temporary perturbation on the 'average state of human condition' over the
grand scale of time. But, other inventions bring much longer-lasting
benefits/changes to a greater number of people. _Those_ are the inventions
that people classify as truly "changing the world". _Those_ are the inventions
that _should_ be worked on __more so __than the 'perturbative' & temporary
world changers.

We are not seeing that. It's a reflection on the abysmal failures of humanity
(in its entirety) rather than on any sub-set (Silicon Valley) or individual.

------
gamesurgeon
If you build something you love, chances are someone else will love it, too.
If you use something you love, chances are someone else will love it to.
Incremental things that we love can spread like wild fire (Facebook, Twitter,
and reddit), and they have changed the world; further incremental products
will likely do so, too.

...An interesting discussion is whether these things we love make the world a
better place. Another interesting discussion is if engineers and entrepreneurs
focus too much on the things we love instead of the things the world needs.

~~~
grossvogel
Yes. It's easy to argue that Facebook has changed the world, but that's not
inherently good or worthwhile.

We could stand to pay more attention to direction of the impact, not just the
magnitude.

------
roymurdock
I've got a few bones to pick with this post.

1\. Its main message, "build things you love" and "let the haters hate" seems
to be pretty well-worn at this point. There was no value added in the way it
was conveyed (no personal story, no anecdotes, no real insights). In fact,
there was value subtracted by the jarring, undeveloped thoughts and the use of
profanity that was censored in the original story on Businessweek.

2\. I don't think anyone dismissed the internet or the iPhone as "incremental"
or "trivial" when they first came out. Especially not in the way we often
wonder about services like Snapchat and Secret. This seems like quite a silly
comparison to me.

3\. I don't agree with the idea that the value of a service is solely defined
by its user base. User acquisition is only one part of a complex equation.
"Hyperexponential growth" is worthless in the long run without a system that
can capture and monetize user interest over time. Plenty of fads come and go:

-Planking

-Swag, #YOLO

-Pet Rocks

-Livestrong Bracelets

-Pets.com (symptom of the .com investing fad)

My opinion is that these fads add very little value relative to advances in
healthcare, infrastructure, education, and technology that have made
quantifiable progress towards a better quality of life for billions of people
all over the world. Fads are like tumors that grow off of cultural and
psychological excess.

------
fred_durst
There is this funny thing about progress that I think about sometimes. Most
old people I've spoken too say that things were better when they were young.
They also say that things are easier now. Sometimes I wonder if that is the
disconnect technologists don't quite grasp.

------
TomSattel
Facebook, Twitter, reddit are still trivial.

I'm not doing SO MUCH BETTER than my parents because I have those things and
they didn't.

The internet isn't trivial but I wouldn't say that my life is SO MUCH BETTER
because I have internet. My parents did great without internet.

~~~
candu
"Farming is still trivial. I'm not doing SO MUCH BETTER than my parents
because I grow food instead of hunting for it. My parents did great as hunter-
gatherers."

~~~
TomSattel
Hunter gatherers had violent lives, experienced starvation and died in their
thirties. So it's not a fair comparison.

~~~
TeMPOraL
They also had happy lives, didn't have to slave themselves for 2/3 of their
lives to get food and shelter, and no, they didn't die in their thirties, they
lived as long as we do. Oh, and also they didn't have so many diseases - it's
another thing we got from settling down and becoming agrarian.

~~~
TomSattel
The point is, just because we have reddit and facebook now doesn't mean we're
all just so much better off. The contribution of those products to our lives
is rather trivial. Even the internet, while it's very impressive and useful
and interesting, has not made everyone in our generation better off. It's cool
to have but like I said, my parents and grandparents were fine without it. In
fact they were probably more fine than many of technologically most advanced
people on this forum.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The point is, just because we have reddit and facebook now doesn 't mean
> we're all just so much better off._

That I agree with.

> _The contribution of those products to our lives is rather trivial. Even the
> internet, while it 's very impressive and useful and interesting, has not
> made everyone in our generation better off._

And that I disagree with. The Internet, and services like Facebook and Reddit
are turning humanity into a giant hive mind - millions of people constantly
connected in amost-instant form of communication and exchange of ideas. This
is something unprecedenced.

> _It 's cool to have but like I said, my parents and grandparents were fine
> without it._

Your parents and grandparents were probably fine without it, but this is the
standard case of Blub paradox - people always work with what they know and
every improvement feels like useless nonsense until you actually try it; then
you start asking, how people could live without said improvement.

My previous comment was picking on the notion of old hunter-gatherers being in
significantly worse situation than societies nowdays. My current belief is
that our technology makes world for the current generation better than the
generation of our fathers and grandfathers, but we might not be necessarily
better off than people in pre-agrarian times.

------
rvn1045
> Most of the “intermediate” companies, although it would take a separate long
> post to explain why, end up not having a big impact.

Couldn't this just be explained with power laws? Some small percentage of
companies will have a disproportionate share of the impact.

------
d--b
It's not about the amount of change one is bringing, it's about the arrogance.
It's about giving oneself more importance than anyone else. It's about
believing that what you shitcode is golden

------
rvn1045
I think the real issue is not that these companies might not be changing the
world, but rather that a lot of these companies don't have sustainable
business models.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That't a feature, not a bug. It all makes sense when you realize that the
"products" are all throwaway, their _only_ reason to exist is to get many
people onboard fast, so that the company can be sold for lots of money (the
product usually gets killed at this point; users are only score, why would
anyone care about them anway).

------
6nne
Why is it that intermediate companies do not end up having a big impact? And
what are some examples of such companies?

~~~
oskarth
The overly ambitious aren't expected to succeed, and the frivolous aren't seen
as amounting to anything. What they both have in common is that - when they
work - they come as surprises, and surprises means you've probably discovered
something new.

Middle-of-the-ground companies are more predictable in a sense, less likely to
stumble upon something new, and thus less likely to have a big impact.

------
hagope
>build something that some people love but most people think is a toy

best quote...

~~~
general_failure
dildo fits the description :)

~~~
beenpoor
I just donno man..this is easily the funniest comment in a long time.

