> This shows how hard it is to be right about the future
Back in 1995 I remember I was very skeptical about what was then called radio modems. I thought that radio wasn't reliable and that Ethernet cables were there to stay forever. I didn't see laptops (let alone smartphones much later) becoming a thing. Though funny thing is, today in 2020, my laptop is connected via Ethernet at home. WiFi interference and congestion can at times become unbearable in a typical residential apartment block. You don't even know who or what creates interference so I was kind of right back then, but also terribly wrong in the long run.
I missed the practical aspect of radio communication within a short range, and I missed the trend that computing devices will get smaller and more portable over time. We thought at the time that computers will get more powerful but the size factor and the "desktopness" won't change.
The lesson for me is: don't try to predict the future of technologies. You can't just take a trend and extrapolate into the future: trends make unexpected turns and jumps all the time. This seems to be the only thing that's reliably predictable: that sudden turns and breakthroughs happen all the time and that each turn and breakthrough discovers some new practical aspect of a technology that was impossible to see in advance.
Back in 1995 I remember I was very skeptical about what was then called radio modems. I thought that radio wasn't reliable and that Ethernet cables were there to stay forever. I didn't see laptops (let alone smartphones much later) becoming a thing. Though funny thing is, today in 2020, my laptop is connected via Ethernet at home. WiFi interference and congestion can at times become unbearable in a typical residential apartment block. You don't even know who or what creates interference so I was kind of right back then, but also terribly wrong in the long run.
I missed the practical aspect of radio communication within a short range, and I missed the trend that computing devices will get smaller and more portable over time. We thought at the time that computers will get more powerful but the size factor and the "desktopness" won't change.
The lesson for me is: don't try to predict the future of technologies. You can't just take a trend and extrapolate into the future: trends make unexpected turns and jumps all the time. This seems to be the only thing that's reliably predictable: that sudden turns and breakthroughs happen all the time and that each turn and breakthrough discovers some new practical aspect of a technology that was impossible to see in advance.