6 ms·

If anyone was around for the dot-com bubble any company internet related or with a web like name was irrationally funded, P/E didn't matter, burn didn't matter,

If anyone was around for the dot-com bubble any company internet related or with a web like name was irrationally funded, P/E didn't matter, burn didn't matter, product didn't matter. AI has all the same markers of a the dot com bubble and eventually venture capital will dry up and many AI companies will go bust with a few remaining that make something useful with an unmet niche.

Marciplan 8mo ago
regardless if you were around or not, this take has been repeated a quintillion times by now
- passwordoops 8mo ago
  Because it's the correct take
  - hobofan 8mo ago
    Doesn't mean it's a valuable take. It doesn't even significantly matter whether it's a bubble or not, but whether its a "bad" bubble. I think Steve Eisman (of housing bubble fame) recently made the argument that it's probably a bubble, but it doesn't seem to have the hallmarks it would have to turn it into a crisis. e.g. no broad immediate exposure for the general populace (as in housing/crypto bubbles).
    - red-iron-pine 8mo ago
      > It doesn't even significantly matter whether it's a bubble or not, but whether its a "bad" bubble. there are billions and billions of dollars invested in there -- it matter significantly to a lot of people. the bubble popping may trash the US and possibly global economy. "it doesn't matter" has to be one of the worst AI takes I've seen...
- clownpenis_fart 8mo ago
  [dead]
- alex1138 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - gchamonlive 8mo ago
    Or "nice project, I've done exactly the same 10 years before..." Or "cool project, but why haven't you tried [insert obscure software]". The list goes on.
    - gjvc 8mo ago
      the "why not xxxx?" comments really are the height of disrespect, ignoring someone else's effort to instead show how smart they are, while being lazy about it. I bet 9/10 people who make such comments never even look at the original project in any depth, let alone try it out in anger.
      - card_zero 8mo ago
        There could instead be warm fellow-feeling where everyone maintains respectful silence about alternatives, everybody with a new project gets a lovely ego boost, and I remain uninformed about what else exists.
        gchamonlive 8mo ago
        If that doesn't come in the form of a discussion grounded in the original post, I could just as well have asked chatgpt and wouldn't have known the difference.
        gjvc 8mo ago
        all about you, all the time, right?
        card_zero 8mo ago
        I mean, there's room for both things. It would be bad if nobody at all was willing to fawn over a new project and call it exciting instead of shooting it down. (After all, it might be my project ...) Shouldn't be sensitive about people asking "why didn't you do this?" though, or "that reminds me of my own thing that I made back in the stone age". Those are useful and reasonable points, if not made unkindly. Reality is unkind.
ido 8mo ago
"The Web" and "E-Commerce" ended up being quite gigantic "unmet niches" though!
- julkali 8mo ago
  Yes, but only 15-20 years later in the extent expected for 2000. The technology wasn't there yet, just like with LLMs.
  - cheschire 8mo ago
    Right, one could say it was actually the smartphone that made the Internet as successful as it was being pitched to be in the late 90’s.
    - irishcoffee 8mo ago
      From where I sit, smartphones completely ruined the internet. If you're defining "successful" in the sense of people-making-a-lot-of-money I completely agree. If you're talking about the internet in 2005 vs 2025, smartphones completely ruined the internet. At one point I had half my high school using HTML in their AIM profiles because they thought mine was cool. Now kids can hardly even type on an actual, physical keyboard.
      - cheschire 8mo ago
        We're in complete agreement.
  - rollcat 8mo ago
    The technology was there all along, and it's ironic that we're discussing it on this website of all. Look up ViaWeb.
  - kjkjadksj 8mo ago
    The tech was there. The websites worked fine. The issue was number of internet users was too low. Look at number of internet users today vs 1999…
throwaway777x 8mo ago
I had a job at a small investment firm at the time in college and to me it is nothing like the dotcom bubble. The dotcom bubble was the "new economy", the old economy had changed forever and was dead. No one thought it was a bubble. Even when the bubble popped it took until 9/11 to wake us up from the mass hysteria. I can't think of another "bubble" that practically everyone thinks we are in a bubble. To the point that I think many would find it irrational to believe we are not in a bubble. That is not what bubble is. A bubble is the madness of crowds, not the wisdom of crowds and the crowd certainly believes we are in a bubble.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- mazurnification 8mo ago
  "the old economy had changed forever and was dead." Ehem - what is the difference compered to now? Wasn't programmers obsolete by 6mths ago and nobody would work so we do need UBI? However your point that if everybody are thinking there is buble there is none is valid. Ironically your whole post undermine this point. And you are not alone in your analysis. General bubble wisdom is not settled as one might think. Plus famous Alan Greenspan "irrational exuberance" was in 1996. And AFAIK in 1999 everybody know there is buble but it busted only in 2000. On top of that I have seen overlying plots of stock prices now and before dot com suggesting there is 1-2 years of increases still to go.
  - squidbeak 8mo ago
    > Ehem - what is the difference compered to now? Wasn't programmers obsolete by 6mths ago and nobody would work so we do need UBI? You're applying an arbitrary time constraint to the realization of AI's promise in order to rubbish it. This is a logical mistake common among critics: not yet, so never. It doesn't seem as if there is a near limit to the tech's development. Until that changes, the potential for job wipeouts and societal upheaval is real, whether in 5 or 50 years.

Marciplan 8mo ago

regardless if you were around or not, this take has been repeated a quintillion times by now

passwordoops 8mo ago
Because it's the correct take
- hobofan 8mo ago
  Doesn't mean it's a valuable take. It doesn't even significantly matter whether it's a bubble or not, but whether its a "bad" bubble. I think Steve Eisman (of housing bubble fame) recently made the argument that it's probably a bubble, but it doesn't seem to have the hallmarks it would have to turn it into a crisis. e.g. no broad immediate exposure for the general populace (as in housing/crypto bubbles).
  - red-iron-pine 8mo ago
    > It doesn't even significantly matter whether it's a bubble or not, but whether its a "bad" bubble. there are billions and billions of dollars invested in there -- it matter significantly to a lot of people. the bubble popping may trash the US and possibly global economy. "it doesn't matter" has to be one of the worst AI takes I've seen...
clownpenis_fart 8mo ago
[dead]
alex1138 8mo ago
[flagged]
- gchamonlive 8mo ago
  Or "nice project, I've done exactly the same 10 years before..." Or "cool project, but why haven't you tried [insert obscure software]". The list goes on.
  - gjvc 8mo ago
    the "why not xxxx?" comments really are the height of disrespect, ignoring someone else's effort to instead show how smart they are, while being lazy about it. I bet 9/10 people who make such comments never even look at the original project in any depth, let alone try it out in anger.
    - card_zero 8mo ago
      There could instead be warm fellow-feeling where everyone maintains respectful silence about alternatives, everybody with a new project gets a lovely ego boost, and I remain uninformed about what else exists.
      - gchamonlive 8mo ago
        If that doesn't come in the form of a discussion grounded in the original post, I could just as well have asked chatgpt and wouldn't have known the difference.
      - gjvc 8mo ago
        all about you, all the time, right?
        card_zero 8mo ago
        I mean, there's room for both things. It would be bad if nobody at all was willing to fawn over a new project and call it exciting instead of shooting it down. (After all, it might be my project ...) Shouldn't be sensitive about people asking "why didn't you do this?" though, or "that reminds me of my own thing that I made back in the stone age". Those are useful and reasonable points, if not made unkindly. Reality is unkind.

ido 8mo ago

"The Web" and "E-Commerce" ended up being quite gigantic "unmet niches" though!

julkali 8mo ago
Yes, but only 15-20 years later in the extent expected for 2000. The technology wasn't there yet, just like with LLMs.
- cheschire 8mo ago
  Right, one could say it was actually the smartphone that made the Internet as successful as it was being pitched to be in the late 90’s.
  - irishcoffee 8mo ago
    From where I sit, smartphones completely ruined the internet. If you're defining "successful" in the sense of people-making-a-lot-of-money I completely agree. If you're talking about the internet in 2005 vs 2025, smartphones completely ruined the internet. At one point I had half my high school using HTML in their AIM profiles because they thought mine was cool. Now kids can hardly even type on an actual, physical keyboard.
    - cheschire 8mo ago
      We're in complete agreement.
- rollcat 8mo ago
  The technology was there all along, and it's ironic that we're discussing it on this website of all. Look up ViaWeb.
- kjkjadksj 8mo ago
  The tech was there. The websites worked fine. The issue was number of internet users was too low. Look at number of internet users today vs 1999…

throwaway777x 8mo ago

I had a job at a small investment firm at the time in college and to me it is nothing like the dotcom bubble. The dotcom bubble was the "new economy", the old economy had changed forever and was dead. No one thought it was a bubble. Even when the bubble popped it took until 9/11 to wake us up from the mass hysteria. I can't think of another "bubble" that practically everyone thinks we are in a bubble. To the point that I think many would find it irrational to believe we are not in a bubble. That is not what bubble is. A bubble is the madness of crowds, not the wisdom of crowds and the crowd certainly believes we are in a bubble.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
mazurnification 8mo ago
"the old economy had changed forever and was dead." Ehem - what is the difference compered to now? Wasn't programmers obsolete by 6mths ago and nobody would work so we do need UBI? However your point that if everybody are thinking there is buble there is none is valid. Ironically your whole post undermine this point. And you are not alone in your analysis. General bubble wisdom is not settled as one might think. Plus famous Alan Greenspan "irrational exuberance" was in 1996. And AFAIK in 1999 everybody know there is buble but it busted only in 2000. On top of that I have seen overlying plots of stock prices now and before dot com suggesting there is 1-2 years of increases still to go.
- squidbeak 8mo ago
  > Ehem - what is the difference compered to now? Wasn't programmers obsolete by 6mths ago and nobody would work so we do need UBI? You're applying an arbitrary time constraint to the realization of AI's promise in order to rubbish it. This is a logical mistake common among critics: not yet, so never. It doesn't seem as if there is a near limit to the tech's development. Until that changes, the potential for job wipeouts and societal upheaval is real, whether in 5 or 50 years.