Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–367 of 367 posts

Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

#361

Post by mecha_ghidorah »

autoexec wrote: post #347
mecha_ghidorah wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno I'm only just 30 and I am way less excited by tech than I was 10 years ago. Less and less of it is stuff that caters to me... For example I got one of the second generation kindles and it was fantastic, and after that finally died I got a Kindle Voyage because it had the page press pseudo buttons. I'd have preferred actual buttons but better than nothing. Now I am terrified about what happens when that Kindle…

> Phones are similar, Samsung's new flagships don't have SD card slots or audio jacks AFAIK, meaning they are following a trend away from the things that made me go with them in the first place. If I had to get a new phone today I'd be looking at this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Xperia_PRO-I It has SD card support and a headphone jack. I've got a Samsung device now, but they aren't very trustworthy. My fi…

And the updates keep reinstalling things like facebook. It's awful. One of the updates actually uninstalled the facebook messenger app for some reason, no idea why it did that.

EDIT: sorry I forgot to say thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out

Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

#362

Post by pelario »

user_7832 wrote: post #187
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #68

In my impression it really accelerated after the '08 financial crisis (+- a few years for all the people who left wall street and went to HBS) after being an ibanker was no longer cool or well paid and the people who would have gone there decided to come to Silicon Valley. That's a huge mass of people who are grinders who just want to make money and quick and have a totally different mindset than the people who wante…

Slightly off-topic (but related to your comment) - do you know of any company or organization that's truly for public welfare? Or, any VC that cares more about society than a super-high rate of return where such a society-focused company can be launched/funded?

Wikipedia, EFF, Gnu

Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

#363

Post by cutthegrass2 »

The saddest thing of all (for me at least) has been the rise of the "tech celebrity" on Twitter and the other social media outlets.

For context, i'm generationally Xennial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials) and was lucky enough to have access to PC's from the mid 80's.

Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

#364

Post by civilized »

onion2k wrote: post #66

There's a good Douglas Adams quote that explains this; Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things. Apply thi…

This absolutely describes me. Except coincidentally, the things invented after I turned 35, like NFTs, actually are stupid and against the natural order of things.

Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

#365

Post by PaulLeiby »

gilbetron wrote: post #13

It's an age thing - the dreams you had when you were younger didn't turn into reality - dreams usually don't. Or at least, not as you expect it. Tech is still really cool, compared to decades ago. But we have so much of it and it is everywhere, that we re-calibrate and think that all this amazing, cool tech is boring. You can get a 3D printer for a few hundred bucks, build it yourself, build a better 3d printer, get…

> "It's an age thing - ... Tech is still really cool, compared to decades ago."

1. How can one possible claim that tech is cooler now than is was in the 60s when we were racing into space, developing semiconductors and transistors? Or the 70's when we were rapidly developing integrated circuits, computers and languages? Or cooler than maybe the coolest tech-time ever, the 00s and 1910s when we were simultaneously perfecting bicycles, developing automobiles, powered flight, electrical power networks, and mostly in folks garages or barns?! "It's an age thing." 2. Tech is always cool. 3. Don't let anyone else tell you what is cool, including me.

Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?

#366

Post by throwaway675309 »

tarboreus wrote: post #327
xboxnolifes wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is not having a drone, but what you do with them. It's like saying photography is not exciting when everyone has a camera.

It kind of isn't. though.

You shouldn't derive whether or not something is exciting to yourself by its exclusivity. I can't even begin to state how wrong that feels.
Post reply on HN