Predicting the future of the Internet is easy

Some day, real people (non-techies, non-Westerners, people who are not 20-something males, etc) will almost certainly be about as plugged in as the mean HNer is currently. I cannot conceive of this happening without generating staggering amounts of wealth.<p>Groupon just invented a new industry with yearly sales which are quickly going to eclipse 10^10 dollars by figuring out how to do distribution for local businesses over the Internet. I think in 2020 that will be remembered by historians with special interest in modestly successful advances. Somebody is going to do something as revolutionary as Groupon/Google/Facebook to a market as big as "healthcare" or "India", and (to misquote an amusing line from Social Network), they'll be able to buy Harvard and use it as their pingpong table.

It's easy to forget how young and immature the internet and even the software industry is. Software development is still in its alchemy stages, with as many (if not more) snake oil salesmen as there are people doing sound, repeatable engineering and science. And as much content as is on the internet today it's still a far cry from all of it, which is a near inevitability at this point. Every book, every magazine, every audio recording, every movie, every tv show, every home video, every bit of information that was ever typed or written onto a piece of paper, everything. As we get closer to that things will change, we have only just barely and experimentally started putting anything of substance online and the result has been staggering.<p>Nobody has seen anything yet.

Im not sure the last time Chris made the front page of HN, but for some reason reading this was absolutely a breath of fresh air for me. The internet will keep doing its thing whether facebook IPOs or the 'bubble' bursts. Focus on your own work, the stuff that really matters, and you will inevitably succeed. Whatever the next big wave is, you'll miss it if you're too busy fretting about what has already come and gone.

I'm not sure finance &#38; law are of no value. Whatever may be wrong with the financial system, it isn't entirely maintained for the benefit of $GS (or hate figure du jour). I can imagine some of its functions replaced by less formal structures though.<p>Law is much harder to see replaced, even if flawed &#38; incredibly inefficient. Law of little value? Shall we try without?

<i>convincing the upcoming generation to innovate in sectors that have a direct impact on the quality of peoples’ lives (Internet, healthcare, energy, education) instead of wasting time on sectors that were historically prestigious (e.g. finance and law) but add little to negative economic and societal value.</i><p>And that, my friends, is why we're in this mess to begin with - industries that don't generate any progress, and therefore should not become profit centers. Just like ISP's and other utilities, in an idea world they should be regulated and forced to compete on a fair and open market.

He highlights finance as one of the industries inevitably disrupted. I hope he's right but I have personally always viewed finance industry profits as a tax that cannot be avoided at any cost less than the cost of starting over. Is there hope that I'm mistaken?

Ha, I liked this one: "we’ll look back in amazement that in 2011 we still used brokers to help us find houses" - I haven't used a broker to <i>find</i> a house in 12 years, actually.