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Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

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Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#151

Post by scooble »

LeSaucy wrote: post #7
neogodless wrote: post #4

This article makes me think of the woodworker's dilemma. You might start working with cutting, planing, joining and finishing wood because you want to make a chair or end table, and you like the idea of learning to do it yourself, maybe saving some money, or at least getting some extra tools out of the process, and having some pride in your work. But before you know it, you've spent 4 years accumulating tools, but mo…

As a software engineer who loves this type of stuff I’m thrilled someone’s willing to pay me exceptionally well to do it. It’s unfathomable to think of a company having 3-4 woodworking teams each with different shops, tools, jigs etc.

> It’s unfathomable to think of a company having 3-4 woodworking teams each with different shops, tools, jigs etc.

Not really, depending on the company. Building something complex, like a house, could require at least carpenters, joiners and cabinet makers, which are quite different jobs.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#152

Post by zazen »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #65
orolle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a different discussion, quite off topic. When the boomers go into retirement, our current economic system with GDP growth focus has a big problem. Our system is based on produce more stuff and buy more stuff. But when the boomers retire, they will buy less stuff. Who will buy supply overhang? Nobody. Even worse, who will pay for the debt incurred to buy overly inflated asset prices, like housing and factories, wh…

Japan is not an apt demographic corollary for the USA. The census recently came out and found that the number of Asian and Hispanic residents of the USA has increased (~20-30%) hugely since 10 years ago. These are younger populations with higher birth-rates than "White" people, whose percentile share of the US is heading downwards. Japan, on the other hand, is xenophobic and has discouraged immigration very heavily.…

You're trying to explain current Japanese demographics with a weird rant about WW2 without mentioning the subsequent economic miracle and population growth? The population of Japan was not far off doubling from 1945 to 2010, and in case you somehow haven't noticed, they became a major first-world economy, eclipsing many many nations which were not nuked.

80 years is really quite a long time. Germany also bounced back rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century to become a major industrial power.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#153

Post by Retric »

wefarrell wrote: post #139
Retric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a legacy of increasing life expectancy not increasing number of births. ~139 Million people where born in 1988 and ~140 Million people where born in 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-and-deaths-project... ~140 Million * global life expectancy of 72.6 years is ~10 Billion people.

More of those births are making past infancy: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?end=2019...

Sure, and more people are living to 40 etc. But without more births population is simply a question of (average life expectancy) * (birth rate).

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#155

Post by jjk166 »

jefftk wrote: post #74
jjk166 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd still probably be better off hiring a carpenter who already has the tools than doing it yourself. They can amortize the fixed costs over hundreds of projects.

Hiring a carpenter is very expensive. The cost of tools is tiny compared to the cost of their labor. (I'm assuming that we're talking about saving money in a way that counts your own time doing something you enjoy as free.)

A carpenter charges like $50/hr. A tablesaw alone would likely set you back more than the labor for some simple shelves. Then they can get better deals on material, they do higher quality work, and they do all the parts that aren't fun, like cleaning up at the end.

Also your time still has value even if you enjoy what you're doing. You could be doing other hobbies you enjoy more, or other aspects of the same hobby, or making money so that you could afford other opportunities instead. You may enjoy woodworking enough that you're willing to forego the value of that time to pursue it, but that doesn't make it any more economical.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#156

Post by cuddlybacon »

masklinn wrote: post #138
manachar wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something amazing/odd/horrifying about a world where it is generally no longer cheaper to do anything yourself. I love to bake and cook. I can do so fairly frugally. A supermarket frozen pie is still gonna be cheaper than anything I can make, especially if I count my time. It's a benefit and goal of the modern global industrialized supply chain, but I cannot help feel that making me work a full time job to bu…

> There's something amazing/odd/horrifying about a world where it is generally no longer cheaper to do anything yourself. How? It’s pretty much the point and purpose of civilisation, to say nothing of industrialisation. > we don't put enough economic value on people making things themselves. The invisible hand is a middle finger. Always has been.

> > There's something amazing/odd/horrifying about a world where it is generally no longer cheaper to do anything yourself.

> How? It’s pretty much the point and purpose of civilisation, to say nothing of industrialisation.

Civilization isn't necessary for this to be true. It is even true in small scale societies. You can observe this whenever they get cutoff from each other: they end up technologically regressing. It is more expensive to do everything themselves, so they end up losing access to technologies.

The world where this was last true was when the common ancestor of us and neanderthals were still around.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#157

Post by asdff »

themacguffinman wrote: post #118
nonameiguess wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author didn't really mean "real world" here. That is a misnomer. The article is about explaining why productivity gains have slowed even in the face of better software techniques. Machine learning has possibly made YouTube more addictive than it otherwise would have been, but this isn't increasing aggregate economic output for the world. It's just concentrating ad revenue in Google accounts, where it used to be s…

> but this isn't increasing aggregate economic output for the world How is it not? Demand is increased as people want to consume more content, and supply has risen to match it. We have more creative & interesting content by more creators than ever, that's certainly a huge increase in overall economic output by any measure. If you want to make some separate point about how "this isn't good for society" then make it, t…

I think you'd have to consider the productivity benefits of youtube relative to the productivity benefits of anything else. For instance, a customer goes on youtube for three hours and sees some advertisements or whatever. Pays nothing. Another customer goes to a local restaurant with some friends for three hours. Spends $60 on food and drinks. Of the two, what is better for the economy? I would wager spending disposable income within the local economy is better than watching advertisements for companies registered in Dublin or wherever has the lowest taxes.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#158

Post by GuB-42 »

pbronez wrote: post #67
hvs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few nits to pick as a woodworker: 1) You never save money building it yourself (at least not in comparison to a standard consumer option, like a chair or table from your local furniture store. This may hold up if you compare what you build to high-end hardwood furniture. But with the cost of tools, you're probably still losing money if this is just a hobby) 2) 90% of my enjoyment of woodworking is just being in my…

> You never save money building it yourself This comes up in the DIY Audio community. It seems like the economic value proposition is very sensitive to what commercial segment you compare against. You absolutely can't beat low-end, mass-produced speakers on price, but it's easy to beat high-end, boutique speakers on price while getting close on quality.

A common money-saving trick is to buy cheap electronics from AliExpress or the likes and upgrade just the right components.

Often, these dirt cheap products are based on pretty decent ICs, but with corners cut on the surrounding circuitry. Sometimes, just changing some components to match the reference circuit can do wonders. Sometimes it is just a matter of replacing a counterfeit cap with a bigger counterfeit cap :)

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#159

Post by jldugger »

mmarq wrote: post #146
Jensson wrote: post #28

Firstly, GDP is a bad measure of productivity. A pill that replaced all healthcare would reduce GDP by 15%, but I doubt anyone (even economists) would call that a catastrophe. Productivity has stalled mostly because people have already filled their needs, so it makes little sense to buy more. Basically everyone have the clothes they need, the food they need, the car they need, the computer they need, already. Screen…

> Firstly, GDP is a bad measure of productivity. A pill that replaced all healthcare would reduce GDP by 15%, but I doubt anyone (even economists) would call that a catastrophe. This is only true in vacuum. In the real world, if this pill totally annihilated the healthcare sector, a massive amount of resources would be freed and reallocated in other sectors.

And the pill would cost a few dollars less than healthcare's lowest bid, not fall all the way to zero, at least until the generics step in.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#160

Post by thinkmassive »

swalsh wrote: post #21
neogodless wrote: post #4

This article makes me think of the woodworker's dilemma. You might start working with cutting, planing, joining and finishing wood because you want to make a chair or end table, and you like the idea of learning to do it yourself, maybe saving some money, or at least getting some extra tools out of the process, and having some pride in your work. But before you know it, you've spent 4 years accumulating tools, but mo…

As a woodworker, i've noticed 90% of time is easily spent on setting the tools up. Jigs help save time because they let you spend less time setting up tools. Economy of scales are gained when you can get more products out of the same number of tool setups.

Similar to setting up dotfiles or a library so they can be reused in your next environment.
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