@breadbin Early adopters are always at risk of disappointment. But I think one can make a very educated guess about whether a new product has any real chance of success. The iPhone had loads of potential up front. The AI pin hinges so much on good AI quality, which is not something that seems to be forthcoming.
@drahardja It felt incredibly hand wavy and I never heard a single explanation of what it’s actually meant to do. So it felt like a no brainer to avoid.
But I wonder if the ratio has changed over time. Is it getter harder to actually come up with and execute a new good product in 2024? Or is it just in my head?
@breadbin@drahardja I feel this as well, but I’ve chalked it up to getting old/not having the same youthful enthusiasm for technology I used to.
But it does seem like we’ve reached some level of maturity/plateau with many of our devices and software, which makes improvements harder to squeeze out.
@applepc@breadbin I think the framing of everything as a Means of Monetization™ has killed a lot of the excitement and optimism that we used to feel back in the PC decades. It’s no longer sufficient to produce software and hardware for their own utility; you must also sell some subscription or disruptive network-effect technology behind it. You can’t make a living by filling a niche need any more; you must also conduct arbitrage.
The relentless monetization of everything means you can’t make a living just selling software or hardware any more; you must eventually sell a service. Not everything should be sold as a service (I’m looking at you, video games), and not everyone wants to run a service business. Unless you are already wealthy and can afford to give your work away for free (e.g. open source), there’s really not many viable ways to be rewarded for honing your computer arts these days.
@applepc@breadbin Is there a market for non-monetized, well-crafted products? Yes. But that market is shrinking, and increasingly focused on the wealthy.
Only the wealthy can afford to pay artisans to create small-batch products that do nothing but what they claim to do, without constant subscriptions, upsells, nags, and arbitrage. Turns out, people actually like products that don’t try to constantly show ads, but only few can afford them any more, thanks to our current product culture.
You can still make artisanal hardware and software. But they’ll probably go into some billionaire’s home entertainment system or private jet.
One uncomfortable possibility is that it’s always been this way, but computers used to be much more expensive. Instead of laying out $4-5K in today’s money for a computer like people did in the 80s, today platforms are accessible to many more people but also monetized in more roundabout ways.
See also air travel, which used to suck less but also be much more expensive.
(Note that I’m grasping here — people much smarter than I can probably add a lot more color here)
@applepc@breadbin The innate Capitalist desire to monetize has always been there, but the means to conduct it in such a ruthlessly efficient way is new.
The conditions of today’s market is the natural outcome of the way the rules are set up for this game.
A handful of gatekeepers control software makers’ access to customers, and they set the rules of the game such that subscriptions (which coincidentally also generate a steady income for the gatekeepers!) are the only viable path forward, and that physical services (such as physical goods and services) are exempt from a toll. So of course subscriber monetization and service arbitrage is the outcome.
The US government has steadfastly refused to protect customers from having their data collected, harvested, and resold. So of course the relentless gathering and reselling of user data has turned into another massive arbitrage industry.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but the way the game is set up, of course it is.
"Take Hostage" is the real name of most fast and break things, take an economic asset hostage says the company plan for Uber. Spend anything to control transport.
@drahardja@breadbin Even if it worked perfectly, not only I don’t want to be speaking to my devices in public for many obvious reasons, but there’s also a strong “designed in a place where people can use a T-shirt indoors and outdoors during 10 months of the year” aspect in this product. I don’t see people having the patience to detach and reattach the device every time they dress or undress a coat or sweater. Or the device being attachable at all to thick winter dawn jackets rated for -20C.
It has not shipped the pre-orders, so there are no reviews out yet. I like this screen vs projecting onto your hand. Still the utility of the AI may be more aspirational than what the demo showed. Now if Alexa can improve to the point it can do meaningful tasks, like make takeout order for my dinner, that would turn every Echo device like my Echo Buds into a great tool.
@drahardja It is better than what we had 5 years ago, but also not at the level of Jetsons and Star Wars.
Once I can ask my personal digital assistant, “Will I need an umbrella today?” and it is able to answer with a check of my calendar to see where I plan to be that will be a major milestone.
Another would be to quickly order one of my favorite dishes for takeout with a simple request. It would replace either using an app with terrible UX or making to a phone call in a noisy restaurant.
Add comment