Ask HN: Predictions for 2025?

There's more to it than coders losing their jobs. For the last 40+ years, kids have been encouraged to go to college over trade schools. We now have a shortage of professional tradespeople. Desk jobs are easy to outsource and they are now vulnerable to AI. Even if they, plumbers and such, are not the best-paid jobs they will continue to be needed in our society as long as we have people.

Political/General

Inflation creeps up with tariffs, but blue collar jobs and the economy 'boom.'

Deportation program and other things people worry about or get excited about gets tied up in courts and never happen.

Tech

Enshittification of all customer service accelerates as LLMs take over.

Lower wages for devs as too many seeking work put downward pressures.

Layoffs continue. Not because of AI, but because interest rates are still too high for a lot of companies.

Companies figure out how many engineers are out of work and getting desperate, and start laying off higher earners and replacing them with people who will do it for less.

An interesting prediction is one that is predictive of something impactful and correctly predicts something which is currently significantly under weighted by others.

Given this I'll say that 2025 is going to be a significant year geopolitically and economically for Western Europe. Social unrest is rising here, especially around the topic of immigration, and countries like France and the UK are currently on a path to fiscal crisis if we cannot get spending under control.

My prediction is that in 2025 Trump brings to implement more tariffs on China and these tariffs are met with relation by China. Europe tries to remain somewhat neutral, but under threat of tariffs themselves ultimately sides with the US against China resulting in retaliatory tariffs from China on Europe.

Inflation starts rising globally again, resulting in increased borrowing costs which triggers an economic crisis in Europe given recessionary growth and debt servicing costs spiking, ultimately forcing governments to make significant cuts in spending.

The social unrest this results in ultimately further amplifies the populist far-right in Europe, and for this reason 2025 will be looked back at as the year which triggered a meaningful change in the post-war political consensus.

I might be wrong. As someone living in Europe right now though I am worried. Things seem to be really breaking down on multiple fronts and it's not clear to me how things could just go back to normality at this point. Given where we are right now – especially now with the election of Trump – 2025 seems like the year something might finally give.

I agree with the rest, but not necessarily investments collapsing. It seems to me that the incoming administration will be friendly to business, gutting consumer and environmental protections.

Assuming tarrifs happen, there will be price hikes. And if there are general price hikes it's easy (and sometimes necessary) to hike your own prices even if you're not directly affected. This will improve profits (at least in the short term).

So, I expect the stock market to do very well. The rich will get richer. The middle class will be pushed down.

But yeah, the 95% are about to get what they voted for.

> The big question is about trends in AI investment and usage from "old" corporations, SMBs and common people.

These are only just getting started, from the large corps down. There is a decade of work ahead for them even if the AI tech stopped maturing right now.