>I've been wondering for a long time now, at what point will so much innovation have already happened since the 90s-00s that there won't be enough actually useful features to tack on to the next release of X thing except ones that solve problems we didn't have?
I think we've passed that point a while ago. 4K is a smidgen beyond what most eyes can resolve, the smartphone has not seen the revolutions the early years did for a long time (since iPhone X I guess?), VR did not bring the Metaverse, NFT's flopped. I suppose the cloud was a shift in how we do things though.
Before I read your last paragraph I thought you were going to comment on how AI was not the revolution that was promised. There's some use cases and it's amazing that the tech works as well as it does, but I just don't see the mass adoption in the numbers or around me at all.
I used to be wide-eyed and excited for tech. I was an early adopter of all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the iPad, but the phenomenon described in the article as well as enshittification and the constant hype trains have disillusioned me. I buy a phone because it does everything I need to do life admin and it takes nice pictures, but like the article describes I wish it wasn't a data mine and an attention draining rectangle. I feel like there's more people at work trying to drain my brain and my wallet than building cool tech.
Back when not everything was connected to everything else by default all the time, the avenues for stealing my attention just weren't there and selling me a gadget had to be done on its merits. Maybe that's why innovation in the sense of utility is down and out.
I think we've passed that point a while ago. 4K is a smidgen beyond what most eyes can resolve, the smartphone has not seen the revolutions the early years did for a long time (since iPhone X I guess?), VR did not bring the Metaverse, NFT's flopped. I suppose the cloud was a shift in how we do things though.
Before I read your last paragraph I thought you were going to comment on how AI was not the revolution that was promised. There's some use cases and it's amazing that the tech works as well as it does, but I just don't see the mass adoption in the numbers or around me at all.
I used to be wide-eyed and excited for tech. I was an early adopter of all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the iPad, but the phenomenon described in the article as well as enshittification and the constant hype trains have disillusioned me. I buy a phone because it does everything I need to do life admin and it takes nice pictures, but like the article describes I wish it wasn't a data mine and an attention draining rectangle. I feel like there's more people at work trying to drain my brain and my wallet than building cool tech.
Back when not everything was connected to everything else by default all the time, the avenues for stealing my attention just weren't there and selling me a gadget had to be done on its merits. Maybe that's why innovation in the sense of utility is down and out.