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Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#21

Post by mikewarot »

If you're looking at this as someone who enjoys technology and what it allows on a personal level, it's never been better. The recent arrival of 3d printers and desktop CNC mills means that you can build almost anything.

Even with the recent price hikes, compute power of even a small machine dwarfs that of large organizations 50 years ago for less than a day's wages.

We've got persistent global internet, mostly. You can build your own community without relying on the tech bros, if you want.

It's scary in the short run, but I think the future is still bright.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#22

Post by AnimalMuppet »

I see it. I think that a couple of large things happened in the larger society, and tech is inside of that.

The American Dream kind of died. It died in two ways, and it's important to keep them separate.

First, the American Dream died (or at least got very sick) in that the path from high school graduate to high-paying job got very narrow. This was because other countries rebuilt after WWII, and outsourcing happened, and the US culture changed from more "we're all in this together" to more "I got mine, you can starve".

Second, the American Dream died even for those who got the well-paid jobs. They found out that it wasn't enough - that they needed something more than more money. Material prosperity is not enough, and more material prosperity won't fix it. Humans need something more, and we aren't getting it.

We're not getting it from technology, either. We don't need better graphics and instant movies. We don't even need social media - or at least, we don't need what social media has turned into, making us a slave to dopamine hits.

With that going on, how do people view tech? As a way to get rich? Well, that's probably not going to work out, at least not for most of us, and even if it does, all it gets me is money. As a means of making the world better? Yeah, how's that working out?

We're feeling the lack of something, and money isn't going to fix it, and tech isn't either.

I think that's what changed. People thought that tech could make the world better, and make them rich along the way, and now they see that tech can't fix what we need fixed, and being rich isn't enough.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #5

> Airbnb, Uber, Amazon literally none of these are good for society. > countless SaaS startups felt like they were genuinely improving things > false nostalgia I think so... the more time that passes the clearer it becomes that techno-optimism and silicon valley were really just a thin veil, and techno-feudalism was the real motive the whole time. See Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin et al.

Hmm...

  One net to rule them all,
  One net to find them,
  One net to bring them all
  And in the darkness bind them,
  In the land of NorCal where the shadows are.
That's the vibe I'm getting from what you're saying - creating the lure of progress through technology, but when we make the tech, it becomes a way of enslaving us.

And it may even have been true... for some people. I don't think that the bulk of the Silicon Valley hope/dream was just a thin veil for most of the people there.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#26

Post by JojoFatsani »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #5

> Airbnb, Uber, Amazon literally none of these are good for society. > countless SaaS startups felt like they were genuinely improving things > false nostalgia I think so... the more time that passes the clearer it becomes that techno-optimism and silicon valley were really just a thin veil, and techno-feudalism was the real motive the whole time. See Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin et al.

Uber is good for everyone except taxi medallion owners, it could be better if they paid the drivers better. But those jobs simply wouldn’t exist otherwise due to the medallion system.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#27

Post by _DeadFred_ »

If there was tech progress, you would be listing obvious wins. We did that prior to this. I knew my life was better in 2010 than 2000 than 1990. I didn't have to try to convince myself then. All of the ideas we thought were going to lead to something cool have been weaponized against us to maximize corporate profits.

How many apps do you actually use on your phone? The theory was cool, the reality is it's a little addiction slab not really used for the 'cool' ideas.

Airbnb exploited loopholes in local laws to move hospitality into neighborhoods, with detriment to them.

Amazon literally has a plan for when it runs out of low paid workers because it is so bad. Yet it's plan isn't 'be a less shitty company to work for'.

If you did home automation stuff, how much of that is still around, working, and useful? I have a really complex system to turn my front light on at dusk using the internet, something a light sensor did at my parents house in the 90s. And that's about all I have left working.

When you stop your car at a stoplight, and instead of having buttons you have a big screen with an ad, that is also selling all of your movement info, are you experiencing progress?

Netflix, Amazon, etc use to have algorithms that made what you wanted rise to the top. They now all make what Netflix/Amazon/etc want rise to the top. Every tech company's main focus is 'how shitty can I get away with if shitty gets me more money'? Instead of giving me relevant, they now either sell add positions (Amazon) or chose position based on how profitable it is to them (Netflix/Spotify financial/licensing considerations come above an algo taylored for me like they used to have).

We literally have seperate recipes from American companies now. Slop for the domestic American market, and the 1990s actual food grade recipes for Europe.

For our grains now, instead of traditional harvesting, we spray Roundup/glyphosate (tested and approved for earlier in the crop cycle) to kill the wheat/etc to better control harvest. We literally added as a final step for our food to pour questionable glyphosate/herbicides on it all.

America now has more private equity than McDonalds, build on a business model that would have made Reagan era cocaine filled corporate raiders blush. What once made for scandals for movies is now more common than McDonalds. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/05/private-equity-consolidation...

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#28

Post by EmanuelB »

I think the future is both bright and dark. It has never been this easy to create anything yourself. Anything from software to hardware, you can buy and build the tools and make something amazing in your spare time that would only 20 years ago would take a small team with some funding.

There are 2 kinds of companies: 1. The greedy kind that always want more. They see extracting money out of their customers as their sole purpose. 2. The kind that want to build good stuff and help people.

A lot of companies start out as nr 2, but with time and growth, greedy people have a tendency to climb the ladder and turn the nr 2 companies into nr 1 unless the original team knows about this and resist such change. This also means that the founders must be okay living their whole life without owning a Bugatti. VC companies make it hard to stay as nr 2, because even if you are good, if you make a deal with a VC firm that wants to 100x their investment through you, then you have already let the greedy devil through the front door.

A nr 1 company will over time turn into a parasite. Once they extract more value than they give, it is a downward spiral of destruction on the way down. A big part of the US tech economy (as seen from Europe) have "evolved" into parasites. They say they fuel the economy. What they actually mean is that they cause a lot of money to flow around. A parasite that suck a lot of blood will also make a lot of blood flow, so it is not a good measurement of health.

The good news are that parasites die eventually. A lot of people (especially outside US) are very much aware about how toxic american companies have become. In Europe there is right now a whole sector growing rapidly that is doing "X but European" and it looks very promising. This is not only a Europe thing, the same is happening in Asia, but European laws and culture have accelerated it.

What this means is that you will see a lot of destruction and downfall as these giant parasites have to die or kill their hosts. Don't be the host. Don't rely on them. Don't do business with them. Don't work for them. Avoid them like the plague, and don't stand in their way when they fall. They will cause collateral damage, regulators should have stepped in a long time ago, but greed prevented that. These companies are already leaving big billion dollar holes in the market. They can't win those markets back, because in business trust is everything and they have lost trust from these markets. As they continue falling, they need to continue sucking out more blood of their remaining hosts which will further erode trust and create new bigger markets looking for a non toxic alternative. Be that alternative. It has never been easier. The future is bright if you want to.

Random info: "money is the root of all evil" is false. It is actually "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil". If you dig into the original bible texts, it is clear that it is not talking about money as being evil. It is talking about a spirit (mentality) that in English would be more accurately translated as "greed". It is very clear that greed causes destruction and suffering on all levels. From companies managing to erode the middle class to Putin wanting more land. There are companies that steal (legal with greedy corrupt leaders) water only to sell it back to the local population. Why? Greed. It caused Boeing planes to fall from the sky, it caused the 2008 crash and it will cause the AI crash. No matter how much they eat, they remain hungry without limits. This is what greed does. Greed weaponizes good companies with good ideas and turn it into a money sucking machine with no limits. If you want to resist this, you have to start with yourself. Everything starts with one person. Be that person.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or techno-optimism died in the past few years?

#29

Post by austin-cheney »

I was a JavaScript developer for 15 years. I grew to hate it and will never go back. It has nothing to do with AI.

Most of the people employed to write JavaScript are really, and I can’t stress this enough, really shitty at it. That comes with a tremendous amount of messes to clean up and really immature expectations.

I love writing JavaScript applications. It’s the reason I stayed at it so long for employment. Now I work in unrelated technology and continue to write JavaScript applications just for personal use.

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