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Sometimes I wonder what the tech ecosystem would look like without the ZIRP era. I look back over 15 years and with the exception of increased smart phone usag

by 0xpgm 6d ago

Sometimes I wonder what the tech ecosystem would look like without the ZIRP era. I look back over 15 years and with the exception of increased smart phone usage, everything else still looks mostly familiar. Maybe a bit more slick, but also slower and buggier despite having much better hardware. There hasn't been a qualitative leap in software (as was in the 90s). Just larger SaaS companies. Without ZIRP would it have been any different?

PunchyHamster 6d ago
That and venture investment has become bane of good. When a company can run for years, hell, decade+ on the red thanks to investments, that means every competitor now have to compete with company that sells their goods or services below production value. It just kills competition and innovation, which only becomes possible if other company also attracts investors
adjejmxbdjdn 5d ago
Things have become measurably worse as open standards have been dropped. An example is messaging apps. Today, if I want to remain in touch with my friends and family I have to juggle between Facebook messenger (thank the heavens for this app which means I rarely need to open Facebook itself), Whatsapp, Signal, etc. In the early 2000s, even though I was on more services, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AIM, a single app such as trillian or Adium was enough to communicate on all of them. While today we have to go to a whole slew of walled gardens to read posts from folks, such as substack, medium, twitter, etc. earlier, the heavy use of RSS meant that a single RSS news client covered everything. From a socio-political standpoint, “canceling” also wasn’t a thing, since you could trivially self host a blog and discovery would be no different. Even better, discovery was through human recommendations rather than algorithms designed to keep you hooked on the platform.
- 0xpgm 5d ago
  > Even better, discovery was through human recommendations rather than algorithms designed to keep you hooked on the platform. Yeah, that's one thing that is definitely noticeable. Online social services basically became data-driven psychology research companies, with the goal being to improve engagement. Every page refresh became an A/B test designed to keep you hooked.

by 0xpgm 6d ago

PunchyHamster 6d ago

That and venture investment has become bane of good. When a company can run for years, hell, decade+ on the red thanks to investments, that means every competitor now have to compete with company that sells their goods or services below production value. It just kills competition and innovation, which only becomes possible if other company also attracts investors

adjejmxbdjdn 5d ago

Things have become measurably worse as open standards have been dropped. An example is messaging apps. Today, if I want to remain in touch with my friends and family I have to juggle between Facebook messenger (thank the heavens for this app which means I rarely need to open Facebook itself), Whatsapp, Signal, etc. In the early 2000s, even though I was on more services, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AIM, a single app such as trillian or Adium was enough to communicate on all of them. While today we have to go to a whole slew of walled gardens to read posts from folks, such as substack, medium, twitter, etc. earlier, the heavy use of RSS meant that a single RSS news client covered everything. From a socio-political standpoint, “canceling” also wasn’t a thing, since you could trivially self host a blog and discovery would be no different. Even better, discovery was through human recommendations rather than algorithms designed to keep you hooked on the platform.

0xpgm 5d ago
> Even better, discovery was through human recommendations rather than algorithms designed to keep you hooked on the platform. Yeah, that's one thing that is definitely noticeable. Online social services basically became data-driven psychology research companies, with the goal being to improve engagement. Every page refresh became an A/B test designed to keep you hooked.