This is the best possible thing that could happen.
Perhaps we'd see startups aimed at building out solar capacity, grid-scale storage solutions, electricity-to-fuels solutions, solar-powered airships, high-efficiency wind-steam hybrid shipping, high-efficiency retrofits to existing building stock, and management or treatment for TDR-TB, rather than an endless stream of privacy-invading "social" surveilices, games, and new forms of intrusive and annoying advertising.
Though building out an alternet that bypasses the telco's "authorized" channels wouldn't hurt either. Mesh and darknets.
Most of the startup community is aimed towards web-centric ideas for obvious reasons -- the gateway to entry is incredibly low. This doesn't mesh well with hardware, and only puts more reliance upon VC's.
I see financialization, increasing advertising focus (much of which is supported by ... wait for it ... the FIRE industries[1], and "software eats everything", all as elements of catabolic collapse[2]. They're extracting financial value from the economy and transferring that financial wealth, which changes who holds real physical wealth, but doesn't much increase it.
Finbarr's blog piece explores this in much greater detail.
The focus of Silicon Valley over the past decade and more on ephemera and trivialities is very much part of the problem. The fact that the only remunerative opportunities for talent are in the FIRE and social / advertising / gaming industries is not a good thing. And the fact that even VC with long track records of success in technological application fail when trying to operate in the Greentech / alternative space is should be read as exceptionally cautionary.
Yes, there's good news out there. Elon Musk is doing fascinating things with Tesla. Solar is absolutely exploding -- in the past two years, solar generation in the US hasn't merely increased, hasn't doubled, but is up seven times[3]. That's a rate of growth which, if sustained, would have solar being half of all electric generation within a decade. I'm skeptical that the rate of growth can continue, but even if it moderates significantly, doubling times of a year or two can grow a small base hugely, and we need all the help here we can get.
But I really wish that the hacker community would pull its collective head out of its collective ass on occasion and look around at what problems should be solved. And a choking off of the backbone for new trivial ventures really could be a powerful refocusing mechanism, all snark aside.
Perhaps we'd see startups aimed at building out solar capacity, grid-scale storage solutions, electricity-to-fuels solutions, solar-powered airships, high-efficiency wind-steam hybrid shipping, high-efficiency retrofits to existing building stock, and management or treatment for TDR-TB, rather than an endless stream of privacy-invading "social" surveilices, games, and new forms of intrusive and annoying advertising.
Though building out an alternet that bypasses the telco's "authorized" channels wouldn't hurt either. Mesh and darknets.
Get cracking, HN!