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I was around during the dot-com bubble. When it popped it popped pretty quickly. It wasn't a slow leak. Everything needed to be a dot-com and everything was cen

I was around during the dot-com bubble. When it popped it popped pretty quickly. It wasn't a slow leak. Everything needed to be a dot-com and everything was centered around being a dot-com no matter what the business actually did. Money was pouring and almost anything dot-com was getting funding. I moved to a dot-com right at the tail end of it. We built a pretty decent startup from scratch within the first two months and debuted at one of the largest trade shows in the world. We had our own private label factoring credit card and we did credit card transactions over the internet and with handheld cellular devices. It was built to scale, colocated, and we were getting customers. When the floor dropped out it was done in less than two months. dot-com was a very negative thing for a while after that.

skyberrys 5mo ago
I was a teenager around the dot-com and to this day I feel an idealized sense of longing for participation in the exciting times of the dot-coms. You guys got to enjoy the blazing innovation of the new internet, so full of endless possibilities. Tough luck on your bubble popping moment though.
- mech422 5mo ago
  The sad part wasn't the bubble bursting... It was watching all the potential being squandered and the internet basically being relegated to click farming and selling people crap they don't need. All the really cool stuff seems to have died with the bubble...
  - CSSer 5mo ago
    You're still around :)
    - ruicraveiro 5mo ago
      If only the Internet were much more frequently as nice as your reply. :-)
    - mech422 5mo ago
      LOL - True Dat !! Thanks!
    - IndySun 5mo ago
      >You're still around :) You sound like my doctor! : )
  - wallst07 5mo ago
    I think the sad part was the people entering the IT workforce for only money. Don't get me wrong, I understand why and not gatekeeping. But it was the first time I know that people with computer skills were highly in demand, so anyone who had turned on a computer was able to get a job even if they knew nothing of how a computer actually worked, or networking.
  - skyberrys 5mo ago
    Ah man, you are too right there. Now cool stuff requires wading through trash to find it.
  - drumdance 5mo ago
    The spam results dominating Google, runaway popups... ugh
- MattPalmer1086 5mo ago
  Well, it was exciting I guess. I even knew someone who worked for pets.com! On the other hand, I worked for a startup selling product information management software to large retailers, and was about as non dot-com as you could get. When the bubble burst, all the funding disappeared for all tech companies, not just the dot-com ones, so we were also all out of a job. Which was not fun.
  - ainu011 5mo ago
    [dead]
danaris 5mo ago
It's definitely looking like we've passed the peak of the S-curve here. But there is one difference between now and the dot-bomb that could make the shape of what's next different (note, only "could"; it might very well be very similar): with the massively increased financialization of everything, the link between reality and stocks/private equity investment has become much more tenuous. Speculative investors, as a group, know to some extent that they can keep the bubble going just by continuing to buy. For a time. But eventually they will have exhausted all they can squeeze from the "greater fools", and someone's risk analysis department will say "if we don't sell it all now, we'll be stuck holding the bag." And that will start a cascade. Because the other big difference between 2000 and today is the degree of automation in trading....

skyberrys 5mo ago

I was a teenager around the dot-com and to this day I feel an idealized sense of longing for participation in the exciting times of the dot-coms. You guys got to enjoy the blazing innovation of the new internet, so full of endless possibilities. Tough luck on your bubble popping moment though.

mech422 5mo ago
The sad part wasn't the bubble bursting... It was watching all the potential being squandered and the internet basically being relegated to click farming and selling people crap they don't need. All the really cool stuff seems to have died with the bubble...
- CSSer 5mo ago
  You're still around :)
  - ruicraveiro 5mo ago
    If only the Internet were much more frequently as nice as your reply. :-)
  - mech422 5mo ago
    LOL - True Dat !! Thanks!
  - IndySun 5mo ago
    >You're still around :) You sound like my doctor! : )
- wallst07 5mo ago
  I think the sad part was the people entering the IT workforce for only money. Don't get me wrong, I understand why and not gatekeeping. But it was the first time I know that people with computer skills were highly in demand, so anyone who had turned on a computer was able to get a job even if they knew nothing of how a computer actually worked, or networking.
- skyberrys 5mo ago
  Ah man, you are too right there. Now cool stuff requires wading through trash to find it.
- drumdance 5mo ago
  The spam results dominating Google, runaway popups... ugh
MattPalmer1086 5mo ago
Well, it was exciting I guess. I even knew someone who worked for pets.com! On the other hand, I worked for a startup selling product information management software to large retailers, and was about as non dot-com as you could get. When the bubble burst, all the funding disappeared for all tech companies, not just the dot-com ones, so we were also all out of a job. Which was not fun.
- ainu011 5mo ago
  [dead]

danaris 5mo ago

It's definitely looking like we've passed the peak of the S-curve here. But there is one difference between now and the dot-bomb that could make the shape of what's next different (note, only "could"; it might very well be very similar): with the massively increased financialization of everything, the link between reality and stocks/private equity investment has become much more tenuous. Speculative investors, as a group, know to some extent that they can keep the bubble going just by continuing to buy. For a time. But eventually they will have exhausted all they can squeeze from the "greater fools", and someone's risk analysis department will say "if we don't sell it all now, we'll be stuck holding the bag." And that will start a cascade. Because the other big difference between 2000 and today is the degree of automation in trading....