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Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

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Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#641

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Silhouette wrote: post #82
kobeya wrote: post #39

The general-purpose computer. It's a dinosaur on the verge of extinction at the hands of walled-garden app stores on phones and tablets. I never, ever expected that to happen.

That's profoundly disappointing, I agree, but in a sense perhaps we geeks only have ourselves to blame. We didn't solve the basic (to any normal user) problems of ease of use and security, despite having decades to do so. We also didn't start routinely educating the next generation of kids in how useful and powerful programming skills are. Consequently, for many people personal computing has been reduced to little mo…

>We didn't solve the basic (to any normal user) problems of ease of use and security

This user is a strawman. The problem we didn't solve was decoupling ourselves from corporations controlling our user experience, because we didn't create a good enough alternative for getting stuff done.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#642

Post by baud147258 »

hans_mueller wrote: post #416
johan_larson wrote: post #148

I'm disappointed none of the various constructed "universal" languages (like Esperanto) ever took off. Having a single common language spoken by everyone would be enormously useful. As it is, the closest we have is English, but it's a natural language and therefore complicated and difficult to learn.

yes, but the English spoken by most non-natives is actually something like an Esperanto. the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar is almost normalized and an artificial dialect. i think English is a very good compromise. the only problem are French people and other communities who disdain English for patriotical, historical, or political reasons.

As a French people, I do feel disdain for the England, but I love the English language since it allow me to connect with the rest of the planet :).

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#644

Post by astura »

PeterisP wrote: post #526
captainmuon wrote: post #454

Peer-to-peer file sharing. There was a time when Napster, Kazaa, eMule were king. The content industry fought against it, but developers came up with decentralized solutions like DHTs or supernodes. I was convinced the next step would be friend-of-a-friend sharing. You only share files with your direct friends. But they can pass on these files automatically, so their friends can get the files, too. The friends of you…

I believe that DC++ file sharing had a model like that, but the torrents outcompeted it for most purposes; most people don't want friend-of-a-friend filesharing, they either want the most effective way to get the latest goods from whoever has it, or the ability to upload stuff while remaining mostly anonymous.

Minor nitpick, Direct Connect (DC) was the protocol, DC++ was merely a popular client but by no means the only client. It wasn't even the official client.

Direct Connect really excelled at college campuses. All the traffic was internal so it was blazingly fast plus the hub had a chat feature which is incredibly useful (pre-reddit) and sometimes people would share old tests and stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#645

Post by jochung »

swyx wrote: post #170
pimmen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really destroyed my day. I really have a big problem staying positive for at least a day now that you've eloquently expressed what I've had a creeping feeling of but just quite couldn't word in any discussion. As computers become "locked app collections" they become appliances, appliances business and government institutions can control and regulate. "Can you make the iPad just not do that thing?"

ok honestly i dont understand this fear. isn't the open web the antithesis of the locked appstore?

The only way for the "open" web to evolve is for Google, Apple and Microsoft to agree on a feature, spec it out and roll it out to their different platforms. All anyone else can do is twiddle their thumbs hoping they don't fuck it up.

We sandboxed away innovation, so now all we have is web apps that process text, video and audio all in the same way.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#646

Post by pjc50 »

anon1253 wrote: post #445
pjc50 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "female, age between 16 and 20, who likes writing, RPGs and electronic music and is available for chat" This is probably the reason it was abandoned.

I don't get this. Dating apps are incredibly popular, and it would be opt-in. If it's the age bucket you're concerned with, I met some of my best friends online during that time (female and male). Adolescence is just like that. I understand that harassment, intimidation and general annoying behavior are a concern. But, if we reached the phase where "two random people can't have a normal conversation if they both wish…

I should probably have written a lot more than one sentence there. You're absolutely right about the benefits of meeting randoms on the internet, and clearly it still happens and works for some people. But it always did have social scaling issues - as a particular system or chatroom got more popular the success rate fell. I also worry that the culture has changed. "On the internet" really isn't a place apart from everyday life now, and we have a giant all-encompassing social network. And a dating app.

As one of the sibling comments points out, once such a system becomes popular it's also going to be a target for spammers. If there have been any advances in chatbot AI over the past couple of decades that is also likely to make the problem worse.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#647

Post by baud147258 »

zerostar07 wrote: post #457
bantunes wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still an official language in the EU because Ireland (and Cyprus and Malta, to an extent). Right?

Yes, but with the UK gone there will be less nagging from the french :)

No, we'll continue to nag, but about something else (we'll find something easily).

Still I think UE should keep English, since it's already in place and I don't think it would be useful to switch to French.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#648

Post by antjanus »

Adobe Air. HTML/CSS/JS in a native executible with access to native methods? It sounded like a dream. ANd yeah, you can do Adobe Air without Flash. You could build desktop apps and phone apps with the same tools on top of it. I really liked the desktop stuff.

I made a couple of apps and used a ton of Adobe Air apps (non-Flash) back in the day. Thought it was the future.

It failed, for some reason.

^^^^ this is the reason why the rise of Electron wasn't surprising to me. In fact, I was surprised by people being surprised. I realize that Electron is WAY more sophisticated but "desktop web apps" have been around for a while.

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#649

Post by teddyh »

avar wrote: post #280
mseebach wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kindle and it's e-reader kin are pretty successful? I think the problem is that a device with an e-ink display is necessarily single purpose. General purpose devices can't use e-ink, they need to support video playback and browsers with full colour.

That's the GP's point. Of course the update rate sucks because enough research hasn't been put into it. There are already E-Ink displays with much a faster update rate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsY3T1uzjAI Who knows how much faster this could get with enough investment? Unless there's some fundamental physical limitation to the update rate that I'm not aware of.

I prefer this video, showing someone playing Wipeout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH0wAmMbFgI#t=1m37s

Re: Ask HN: What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?

#650

Post by arca_vorago »

Wireless power. In about 2007 I was convinced it was "the future", but other than a few mobile devices with "lay it directly on top of this charging pad" setups, the safety and power-loss issues seem to be pretty large barriers to overcome.
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