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Crazy New Ideas

paulgraham.com

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581–590 of 808 posts

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#581

Post by mettamage »

tjs8rj wrote: post #557
geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

I’m not convinced that’s a good rule of thumb at all, because there’s so many examples where it applies and is wrong, and many where it doesn’t apply but the tech was revolutionary. Not to mention the greater point: Im not even that convinced tech is ever really revolutionary (at least at the same time it gets mainstream adoption). Usually the big improvement it made existed years earlier or in competitors but the ti…

To summarize: one can't predict user adoption. If they can, I'd encourage them to start the required companies in order to capture it.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#582

Post by the_af »

activatedgeek wrote: post #18

I think the key statement to realize here is this, > Most implausible-sounding ideas are in fact bad and could be safely dismissed. But not when they're proposed by reasonable domain experts. Off the top of my head, I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit (to this day). I don't quite think that crazy…

> I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit

And don't forget Newton!

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#583

Post by c01n »

geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

The problem is that success in Silicon Valley means how much money you can make from a product and not about how the product improves the lives of the users in a balanced and morally acceptable way. Is it really successful to disregard user privacy and capitalize on their lack of knowledge, or to build unsustainable tech on top of already unsustainable tech rather then fixing the real issues.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#584

Post by ta_ca »

lghh wrote: post #242
bestinterest wrote: post #4

Very interesting. This sounds like a response to the Mighty [0] launch which Paul Graham has been defending on twitter recently after an outcry from some of the 'hardcore' developers such as Jonathan Blow [1] and Casey [2]. [0] https://www.mightyapp.com/ [1] https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1387101172230672389 [2] https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1387645578067124224

I don't understand how Jonathan Blow of all people, figurehead behind several great video games that would have been impossible to run on a supercomputer 25 years ago, could possible have this take.

you can't just compare a game and a web page. vastly different requirements.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#585

Post by tacocataco »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #574
tjs8rj wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not convinced that’s a good rule of thumb at all, because there’s so many examples where it applies and is wrong, and many where it doesn’t apply but the tech was revolutionary. Not to mention the greater point: Im not even that convinced tech is ever really revolutionary (at least at the same time it gets mainstream adoption). Usually the big improvement it made existed years earlier or in competitors but the ti…

I think the big thing about these innovations was that the nay-sayers didn't expect how big a demand there would be for specific implementations of them after the network effect kicks in. Social media? Technically it is very simple. But now everyone is on it so the dominant platforms are making billions with advertising. We didn't need a social media platform. We needed a social media platform where most of the inter…

I just wish social media platforms had adviasarial integration like telephone companies were forced to do.

Let the platforms compete on UX and data handling policies.

That way, the interesting people on one platform aren't gated away from the interesting people on others.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#587

Post by marcus_holmes »

geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

I think of this as my "Kardashian problem".

I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works.

This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works.

This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-market product until I understand it as well as the Kardashians understand their market. They are experts in their domain. I am not, and I doubt I ever will be. I don't even understand how their market works. Why does anyone spend any time watching these people? Until I understand that, I should stay away from mass-market ideas.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#588

Post by breck »

aniforprez wrote: post #511
breck wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why? Because cancer is incredibly complicated and requires incredible amounts of data, analysis, and *collaboration*.

The "but why" question was not pointed at visualizing 1TB of single cell RNA sequence data or collaboration. It was pointed at why you'd want to do it in a browser? Why wouldn't you be able to make links and share them from a native application that they can then open in their application? Maybe I'm missing something in your problem statement but are you downloading all that 1TB in your browser window and changing pa…

> why you'd want to do it in a browser?

Distribution. There's only 1 magic platform that allows you to ship new versions at your own cadence to 100% of people.

Developing for just M1s is great, when all your users are on M1s.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#589

Post by wombatpm »

newbie2020 wrote: post #462
ergot_vacation wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"twitter: couldn't you just not? Isn't that just a worse version of what we can already do??" This is correct though. Twitter is not a good idea, or a good product (if your metric for good is being useful and improving lives, rather than simply profit). Twitter succeeded because it became a "meme": everyone was caught up in what it could be. By the time it became clear that all the things it could be were bad , it wa…

Twitter, while poorly run at the moment, is one of the best platforms on the web for spreading information. I hope it never dies

Twitter deserves a full time CEO

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#590

Post by hanniabu »

geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

> It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____"

Sounds like HN's reaction to cryptocurrencies

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