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After the Gold Rush

techcrunch.com

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Re: After the Gold Rush

#31

Post by venomsnake »

cft wrote: post #27
venomsnake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is lack of freely available hardware on which said os to run - a lot of companies try to be your gatekeepers. The golden days like in the 90-s everything is PC, you can run whatever you want on PC are still somewhere ahead of us with mobile and IoT.

Mobile app stores are owned by two tech giants. Expect more and more stories like https://medium.com/@joshliptzin/this-is-how-google-kills-you...

I have a feeling that these tech giants are up for Standard Oil/ Bell surprise in the medium future.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#32

Post by dataker »

tarr11 wrote: post #24

Then[1] and Now[2] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/technology/09silicon.html [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/technology/caution-rebuffe...

I am not sure of what to infer from these.

In the end, the entire macroeconomic background is different.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#33

Post by cft »

I agree with this article overall, especially re: Google, but I do not agree about Facebook. Most American users 13-25 do not use Facebook anymore.

Facebook will either have to work out a business model that makes it profitable to frequently buy WhatsApps/Instagrams and then Snapchats/Telegrams/etc or they will end too.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#35

Post by falsestprophet »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #28
bsder wrote: post #19

No the social gold rush is gone. Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. And "gold rush" is a good term--"land grab" might be better. The fact that the "disruptive" companies are all now skirting or outright flouting the law shows that the easy land is taken. If it's highly profitable, it's either illegal or difficult. Easy and profitable means that, even if you…

>Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. I don't think that is true. Less than 50% of humans have regular access to the Internet. Do you really think that more than half the people on the planet do not want to get online?

Okay, have fun building a profitable social media business serving subsistence farmers.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#36

Post by jjoonathan »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #28
bsder wrote: post #19

No the social gold rush is gone. Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. And "gold rush" is a good term--"land grab" might be better. The fact that the "disruptive" companies are all now skirting or outright flouting the law shows that the easy land is taken. If it's highly profitable, it's either illegal or difficult. Easy and profitable means that, even if you…

>Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. I don't think that is true. Less than 50% of humans have regular access to the Internet. Do you really think that more than half the people on the planet do not want to get online?

Economics weights people by wealth. Unless you're a charity or playing a very, very long game, all your potential customers are already online.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#37

Post by monkmartinez »

roymurdock wrote: post #7

I like to scan these articles for numbers before reading. If I don't see any, I exit out. If you're going to talk about financial/economic phenomena please at least conduct a modicum of quantitative research and give us some concrete data to discuss, not just opinions in a void.

You don't need hard numbers to philosophize about the tech industry, nor economic phenomena in general. Read blogs like ibankcoin/flyblog or zerohedge and you will find financial/economic articles written with data that is ancillary. That is, the hard data is not immediately required to make the point.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#38

Post by monkmartinez »

cft wrote: post #33

I agree with this article overall, especially re: Google, but I do not agree about Facebook. Most American users 13-25 do not use Facebook anymore. Facebook will either have to work out a business model that makes it profitable to frequently buy WhatsApps/Instagrams and then Snapchats/Telegrams/etc or they will end too.

I agree. I ask myself this question; "If was to disappear tomorrow, what would happen?"

The answer for Facebook and me, is nothing. If Google disappeared tomorrow, I would be hurting for many services I probably take for granted. I suspect if Facebook disappeared tomorrow, most people's lives would not materially change for the worse. Perhaps they would even change for the better.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#39

Post by tdaltonc »

matheweis wrote: post #23
bsder wrote: post #19

No the social gold rush is gone. Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. And "gold rush" is a good term--"land grab" might be better. The fact that the "disruptive" companies are all now skirting or outright flouting the law shows that the easy land is taken. If it's highly profitable, it's either illegal or difficult. Easy and profitable means that, even if you…

> And, do remember, the people who made all the money in the gold rush weren't the miners, it was the people who sold shovels and alcohol. Ssssh, don't give away the secret. ;) Actually, startups designed to sell to other startups will fail too when the whole thing collapses like a stack of cards... Enter Mandrill, which recently found its conversion funnel so ineffective that they suddenly shut the entire system dow…

Is that what happened to Mandrill? I've read a coherent explanation of what's going on there and why, but I'd love to.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#40

Post by Periodic »

jjoonathan wrote: post #36
jsprogrammer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. I don't think that is true. Less than 50% of humans have regular access to the Internet. Do you really think that more than half the people on the planet do not want to get online?

Economics weights people by wealth. Unless you're a charity or playing a very, very long game, all your potential customers are already online.

Those countries are getting wealthier and the economics of the world are slowly shifting. We have maybe 1-2B people online with capable devices and abundant bandwidth. That leaves 5B yet to connect and another 3B who will want to connect over the next 50 years as population continues to grow.

You can see Facebook and Google scrabbling over themselves to get a share of the emerging markets. Google is trying to pair down Search so they can get it onto those 2G connections. Facebook is trying to give away bandwidth. They both know there is going to be a lot of money in those markets soon, but no one knows exactly how that economy is going to evolve.

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