Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

- US reelects Trump in 2020. Climbing gyms, lately increasing in popularity also become popular in Mexico.

- global warming causes endangerment and extinction of many species, but traditional oriental medicines extinct the rhinos.

- China, due for a recession now, does not go into a recession despite the real estate/housing bubble because Xi and his government continue to find more ways to manipulate their economy. Consequently, the Shen Yun poster factory expands into money printing.

- Avian migratory patterns shift significantly due to global warming, except flightless birds which begin deevolution into dinosaurs.

- Boomer retirement causes US GDP growth decline. Zoomers are to blame for being unproductive.

- The education bubble bursts. Millenials degree now worth nothing.

Tech:

- Deep fakes used to create fake statements by Donald Trump. Trump denies fabricated statements, and proceeds to create his own.

- Boston Dynamic robots find gainful employment and enter the workforce, but not doing something people can already do because human labor is too cheap.

- Bitcoin never takes off, but the price climbs erratically whilst its most significant contribution to the world: crypto mining greenhouse gases, double.

- 5g is implemented by all major telecommunication companies promising new technological capabilities, but its primary use remains dopamine injections and advertisement.

- wasm causes a mass migration of desktop preferred applications to the web. Despite the existence of wasm, Reddit gets slower and buggier.

- Javascript continues domination of the web. Hipster developers now prefer declarative programming over functional. React Declarations now lets you write directly in HTML.

- Uber introduces Uber Flight - innovating both flying cars and driverless cars. Uber still not profitable.

- Adam Neuman starts a shared-restroom company in New York. Masayoshi Son can't get enough of We Sh*t.

- First VR(or AR) based esports that requires physical movements enter mainstream gaming. Pro gamers in korea now indistinguishable from kpop.

- VR hand controllers continue to evolve making current designs look like the N64 controller.

- VR/AR finds commercial use outside of the gaming industry, but VR gaming still leads the market with Cubicle Simulator.

- AI used heavily in cgi, computer graphics, and animation industries. Animators now work for more hours and less pay.

- Online dating becomes even easier, swiping becomes too 2010's. Loneliness increases even further.

- Elon gets first man on mars, Elon bores tunnels and builds a base on mars. Elon builds solar panels to power base on mars. Elon establishes neuralink to mars. Elon is in endgame now.

Medical:

- Zoomers suffer from unprecedented myopia epidemic, root cause discovered - heavy screen use to blame. Fix of more natural daylight is never taken nor implemented. Luxotica remains in control of the eyewear industry.

- Despite all medical and technological advancements, eating your vegetables, exercise, fresh air, natural daylight, and contact with friends remains the best way to stay healthy.

Cultural:

- Basketball rules change due to the prevalence of 3 pointers.

- Disney remakes a remake. Disney also remakes Pocahontas using cgi, which is just Avatar with native americans.

- New form of rapping created even more incomprehensible than mumble rap.

Technology:

- The web will continue to eat everything. Local applications outside of gaming/office work all but die, replaced by web apps, wasm payloads, and electron apps.

- Self Driving cars continue to be "just around the corner"

- Smartphones reached a design peak in the 10's and we will be surprised that they don't radically change in the 20's

- Electric vehicle sales eclipse ICE

- Lab grown meat finally happens (released at similar to meat prices) but is a complete flop because it's not "real"

- Slow and steady battery tech improvements are going to unleash a ton of innovation in this decade we can't anticipate yet.

Culture:

- Pot is legalized federally and a general wave of decrim for other substances like psilocybin/lsd goes mainstream.

- A president or serious presidential candidate will have their nudes leaked and it will be a huge deal for about a week and then nobody will care. They go on to win the election :p

- Privacy becomes even more dead than it is now. Private cameras and audio assistants are already ubiquitous; imagine that but 10x. All us nerds will continue complaining and the general public won't care.

- Boomers begin retiring en-masse but they have not saved enough. Expect lots of stories about medical bankruptcy and boomers having to take minimum wage jobs to stay afloat. I also expect the "lazy millenial in the basement" trope to completely reverse and become "millenials helping boomers age in place"

Business:

- The news industry continues to be a mess. Local papers that are struggling now all go under leaving only the very large "Papers of Record" left. TV news declines as everyone shifts to online.

- Streaming video becomes a very big deal. I expect a new platform to ascend and for all new "News" and "Entertainment" personalities to pop up. Think Joe Rogan but 10x. Presidential Candidates will have to go on these shows to be taken seriously.

- Of the faang stocks I expect Apple and Netflix to do poorly this coming decade. Apple has little innovation left in it and Netflix has a ton of competition. Facebook and Google I expect to be solid businesses still but not innovative. Amazon will continue to dominate to the point that anti-trust is seriously considered.

- I expect a recession to hit in the next 3 years. It's going to really hurt Boomers who are trying to catch up on underfunded 401ks. It will be a short recession though because any stock correction of note will be aggressively countered by fed policy and government spending. There will be no serious consideration given to austerity. Inflation will finally be unleashed by this process.

Global:

- Closed internets become common. The Great Firewall or similar techniques will be adopted in many countries to stifle dissent but also as a means to stop ubiquitous hacking.

- Africa becomes the new global growth hot spot - it already has been happening but this is the decade everyone realizes it and rushes in like they did to China.

- Kim Jong-un will still run NK and still be shooting off rockets every 6 months or so to get attention.

- Global warming effects will really set in and be obvious to everyone. The talking points on this will completely shift from denial to fatalism ("well its already a little damaged so why not more?"). Nothing continues to get done though because of the need for coordinated global action in a new decade of nationalism.

2. Saudi Arabia will experience a coup, but it will be unsuccessful.

3. At least one of the large non-mobile telecoms in the US, will be acquired, taken private, or go bankrupt.

4. Venezuela will have a peaceful transition into a new government

5. Amazon will come inder tremendous pressure to break up, after at least 1 of their product listings is directly traced back to consumer deaths due to poisoning, malfunction, or misuse. This will lead to changes (wider) liability regulations / court decisions affecting online platforms across at least 5 US states, and spark a wider discussion that threaten to spillover over content companies like FB.

6. The plastic straw and the plastic bag will mostly dissappear

7. 1 country in the world will make the US dollar or the Euro their new official currency.

8. The tv (and potentially other) remote control will increasingly be complemented/replaced by competing remote apps.

9. Brands (Kellogg etc) in the cereals space in the US will see at least 1 M&A or bankrupcty.

10. Same as (9), but in the sweets space (Hershey's etc).

11. A new credit card issuer will enter the US market (brex?)

12. A new (nonwinner) nation will win the soccer world cup

13. Snap, Dropbox/Box or Kayak/Priceline will dissappear/be acquired.

14. Hezbollah will dissappear as a political party in lebanon, but the armed wing will continue in some fashion

15. Signal will accelerate market share acquisition and in fact emerge as a viable US competitor to whatsapp.

16. A new company will out of nowhere become a huge by making road travel more pleasant

17. We will continue not to find traces of life outside our planet (hope im wrong here)

18. Coffee machines will start to noticeably dissappear from the workplace in favor of tea.

19. Medicare age will be raised

2o. The boring company will actually be a success, like space X. Tesla will be ok but solar will continue to limp along.

21. Changes in the US student loan program will send many 4 year colleges into a financial tailspin. Changes will limit loans in many ways or ask colleges to directly shoulder some of the risk.

22. Netflix, GNC/Vita, and Nike market cap will be reduced by 25%

23. The stetoscope will finally dissappear

24. Diamonds will lose market share by 20%, replaced by simpler wedding bands

25. The MLB will see a contraction in one of the following: total games played per season, total teams in league, total tv air time

26. The number of hospitals in the US will grow below the population growth %

27. Violation tickets will cease to be paper records in most US metros.

28. A new budget airline (probably Azul) will expand in latin america and bring down airfares in the region by 20%.

29. Cell phones will have ubiquitous pediatric toolkids for parents sold: thermometer,oxigenation,etc will all be included and easy to operate.

30. I will read this post in 10 years!

This has already been going on for a few years. Both Bumble and Hinge make claims to "fix" online dating to be less toxic and result in fewer false positives. Bumble uses the "girls-talk-first" model and Hinge uses the "designed-to-be-deleted" model. I agree though, there's a lot more to be done here.

Also, as someone in my early 30s with zero desire to get married, it does kind of tick me off when people suggest it's "causing damage" for others when you don't get married early/at all due to dying cultural norms. But that's a separate conversation.