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by InclinedPlane 3887 days ago
That's one major difference, the other is the maturity of the industry.

In 2000 the online tech industry was fledgling, and most of it was vapor. The bubble was bigger than the entire industry. Today tech has grown across the board and the web has become a key pillar of that growth. Trillions of dollars in real value has been built and added to the economy of the world. As big as any bubble might be, the industry is so much larger and on such firmer footing today that a collapse wouldn't have nearly the same impact.
1 comments
ethbro 3887 days ago
I hadn't ever really thought about it this way, but it's a good point.

Fundamentally, one would expect some relationship between total "digitized" (?) economy value (where digitized means able to be controlled, measured, and/or analyzed by software) and the value of startups.

And I don't think many people would argue computer-industry merging hasn't been happening across different industries fairly quickly.

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InclinedPlane 3887 days ago
The "web economy" isn't solely digitized though. Sure you have things like, say, youtube, but you've also got Uber, Amazon, AirBnB, etc, companies that fundamentally rely on the internet and software but which have a big dependency on physical things.
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ethbro 3887 days ago
That's my point though. The degree to which "average physical thing that is depended on" is integratable with software at any point in time.

What is Uber worth with self-driving cars? Or with more granular locking standards (this car will authenticate and unlock for me because its driver added me)?

What is the traditional side Amazon worth without the ability to automatically route packages using laser readers and codes? Or with the ability of packages to self-navigate to their destination?

What is an AirBnB worth with an adjustable room? I walk in, all my preferences are imported into the room: illumination amount, light temperature, room temperature, music? Or, again, if the locks know me because of my digital keys rather than swapping physical ones?

If these businesses have a heavy dependency on physical things (as a lot of tech businesses do), then the degree of integration between that thing and software defines how much value can be delivered. Obviously you can increase this yourself with devices, but that's much more expensive than relying on an increasing average.

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