Where has all the productivity gone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#21

Post by dcolkitt » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #10

I think people are doing more work than ever, but that doesn't mean the work is useful. Think about how much easier it is to build a SaaS or something vs. even just ten years ago, but that doesn't mean that the new stuff being built will bring economic value. In fact we might expect there to be diminishing returns in terms of what delivers real utility and thus improvements in productivity don't translate to a simila…

Everyone churning out Tiktok, Clubhouse, and Robinhood while we need more SpaceX and Teslas. I’m unsure how to tilt the equation so solving for hard (necessary) engineering is more profitable (or lower risk) than window dressing.

TikTok, Clubhouse and Robinhood have touched the lives of orders of magnitudes more people than Tesla or SpaceX.

Tesla sold half a million cars last year. TikTok provided entertainment for a billion people.

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#22

Post by superkuh » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

The material and capital gains of productivity improvements since the 1970s have gone to mega-corporations and their owners instead of to workers.

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#23

Post by failuser » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

alexgmcm wrote: post #15

robjan wrote: post #2

There is a huge assumption here that productivity isn't increasing, which is false. Economic output per hour worked has been steadily increasing in every country since their respective industrial revolutions. When you go to the source tweet, it turns out that it's comparing the developed world to the developing world. Developing economies will always grow faster, but not necessarily efficiently, because there's more…

I think the tweet linked to by OP is using the colloquial definition of productivity (i.e. I can get more stuff done) and uses examples of computer technology etc. This isn't to be confused with the economic definition of GDP per hour worked - which has far more to do with the sectors of industry that a country has. After all, a few financiers doing million-dollar deals is always going to generate more GDP per hour t…

You increase what you optimize for. GDP increase is the stated goal of most current societies and they work to achieve it.

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#24

Post by MattGaiser » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

> The Great Dissipation.

One of the shocks about entering the world of work was how little I often got done in any given day because I was in a meeting or had to deal with some form or was waiting on permission or many other things.

I have had whole days disappear with nothing much to show for them at the end. I am sure I am not the only one. And even though it is almost assuredly known that this happens, nobody seems to care.

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#25

Post by aranchelk » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

The power of presupposition in questions: we’re all trying to figure out where productivity has gone without questioning if it has in fact gone.

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#26

Post by mewpmewp2 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #21

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone churning out Tiktok, Clubhouse, and Robinhood while we need more SpaceX and Teslas. I’m unsure how to tilt the equation so solving for hard (necessary) engineering is more profitable (or lower risk) than window dressing.

TikTok, Clubhouse and Robinhood have touched the lives of orders of magnitudes more people than Tesla or SpaceX. Tesla sold half a million cars last year. TikTok provided entertainment for a billion people.

And was what TikTok did positive impact?

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#27

Post by MattGaiser » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #21

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone churning out Tiktok, Clubhouse, and Robinhood while we need more SpaceX and Teslas. I’m unsure how to tilt the equation so solving for hard (necessary) engineering is more profitable (or lower risk) than window dressing.

TikTok, Clubhouse and Robinhood have touched the lives of orders of magnitudes more people than Tesla or SpaceX. Tesla sold half a million cars last year. TikTok provided entertainment for a billion people.

That is just counting interactions, not the impact of the interactions.

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#28

Post by chelsea102 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

bob33212 wrote: post #14

In 2007 I ran an automated testing team for a product that had 60M in revenue. It was just me by myself. Today you can find startups with less than 5M in revenue with 5 people with the same productivity. Organizations have expanded to fill the budget provided of them mostly through headcount. Similar to Conway's Law.

This anecdote proves little. Even if taken as representative, there are valid reasons for a differing level of investment, like:

- importance of quality to the product domain

- differences in talent levels and supply of talent

- differences in company stage and expected future revenue growth

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#29

Post by blueblimp » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

> Technology calls our bluff. Improvements in technology show us that technology wasn’t the obstacle that we thought it was.

It would make sense that, as technology improves but humans don't, the bottleneck would eventually become the humans.

To get around this would require improving the humans (via genetic engineering, for example) or going human-less (via artificial general intelligence, for example).

Re: Where has all the productivity gone?

#30

Post by captainbland » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

Weird article, productivity has increased and is increasing. The real question is whether the result of that productivity is necessarily well harnessed, although that is subjective to a degree. Questions still remain, however, over why so much work is done and yet many of the individuals engaging in that work end up in in-work poverty. That huge amounts of the labour force cannot even afford their own housing.

But I digress, I suspect there is a lot of "hidden" productivity that only emerges at the collective level, which is enabled primarily by better communication and transportation, that is not obvious at the individual level.