What came is what was always coming. From about 2003 (post-dot-com bubble) until about 2013, it was an era of ‘do no evil’. Make the world a better place. An era of ‘we’re better than the previous generation’ and the democratizing effects of the internet and social media. It was given to us for ‘free’ with the mantra of ‘don’t worry about it, we’ll monetize later. Trust us.’ We bought into it and created massive platform monopolies.<p>What came was next was a bait and switch that resulted in cesspools of advertising, tracking, and a mess of curated content that promotes outrage and polarization because it keeps people on the page and clicking links. Content and journalism has been diluted and pushed to the gutter — quantity over quality. The noise is deafening.
Here are some of the great things (IMO) from the Internet in this decade: <a href="https://href.cool/2010s" rel="nofollow">https://href.cool/2010s</a><p>It would be cool to see a similar list of promising/essential software. I would personally list Julia, Elm and Redis, for instance. But I could see people putting Kubernetes or Mastodon. Breaker Browser, SSB, Webmentions are already on my list.
What a strange and bad way to "reflect" on the 2010s. This was not the decade that tech lost its way. It was the decade that more of mainstream media woke up to some of the issues with tech. NYTimes seems intent to prove they don't understand. Why else would you report rosy talking points from Thrun about self-driving without any countering viewpoints? Or include a long quote from the CEO of the company that developed Pokemon Go, without any talk of the issues surrounding the game?
I feel that as a technologist we need to better think out the long term ramifications of what we create. Be less apt to bring things to the public. Technology is great when used in a manner that helps everyone in society, however it can be Pandora and hard to shove in a box once it is out there. Sometimes things can damage a society with good intentions at heart only to backfire miserably.<p>Especially considering the loss of the "do no evil" mentality. Everything moved heavily over to IPO's where you have people buying chunks of tech companies who have no clue how any of this works, but they demand a return so we push things out without much thought about if it will have negative consequences. Witnessing the lack of moral ideals and the blatant grab for money entrench the tech community. I saw in the last decade a major rise in "Tech Bros" in the workforce. Honestly, I am looking at going back to school next year for Geography to work on maps. I am a bit burnt out by "tech" after this decade. (That or I am just getting a case of the "old." I still love tech, but don't want to work in the field anymore.)<p>Einstein on the atomic bomb,<p>“The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)” Albert Einstein
The decade tech lost its way, except TikTok<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/10/arts/TIK-TOK.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/10/arts/TIK-TOK....</a>
Quote: "Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders, spent many hours scoping out what looked like the most difficult places to drive on the planet. It was Highway 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles; it was Lombard Street; it was Market Street; it was all the bay bridges; it was through Tiburon and around Lake Tahoe. "<p>Hahahahahaha...yeah dudes, when you're done do bring that car onto Eastern Europe roads full of potholes, no marks and dirt. Ohh, and the corrupt cops that inhabits them by default. Then we'll see how good your self-driving car is.