[elamje]

I have had similar thoughts about big tech companies, but lately I have started to realize the progress they have brought.

To name a few: - Google, FB, Amazon basically wrote the book on distributed systems (Read Designing Data Intensive Applications), both from a research perspective and a very well architected, open source solution

- Google, FB have profoundly impacted front end development with cutting edge Javascript runtimes and open source front end frameworks

- Amazon, Google, Microsoft have basically invented/popularized a way to do computing(Cloud), server management that has enabled tiny tech companies to become giants by outsourcing IT infrastructure

- Apple/Google have created devices, OSs, and software that is nearly impossible to live without these days, additionally creating platforms for millions of developers to make a living on(App Store)

- Amazon has set the bar pretty high for automation in operations and made 2 day shipping a thing we expect from everyone

There are many other things I can’t think of right now, but long story short most of the companies you listed do have crappy parts of their business, but have also made incredible platforms that 3rd parties can leverage to make a ton of money.

I caveat all of this by saying that there are some practices that I don’t agree with at all of those firms, but by and large they have gotten so big because they are platforms.

[svachalek]

There's a lot going on, but if you go back a few decades the list is more like: radio, television, cars, airplanes, skyscrapers, subways, refrigeration, plastic, aluminum, etc. This is a strange time period, in that technologically things seem to be moving too fast and stalled out at the same time.

[Yoric]

> - Google, FB, Amazon basically wrote the book on distributed systems (Read Designing Data Intensive Applications), both from a research perspective and a very well architected, open source solution

Most of the science behind these things is actually older. They industrialized it, removed the kinks, built upon actual experience, all of which is extremely precious, but I don't think it's as groundbreaking as people believe.

> - Google, FB have profoundly impacted front end development with cutting edge Javascript runtimes and open source front end frameworks

If you're talking about JITs, that's gradual improvements on prior work on JITs (started during the 60s, ignored by industry until Sun picked it during the 90s... for an academic project). Again, very useful, but not necessarily groundbreaking.

> - Amazon, Google, Microsoft have basically invented/popularized a way to do computing(Cloud), server management that has enabled tiny tech companies to become giants by outsourcing IT infrastructure

Again, industrialization on prior academic work (e.g. virtualization, distributed component-based architectures, etc.)

> - Apple/Google have created devices, OSs, and software that is nearly impossible to live without these days, additionally creating platforms for millions of developers to make a living on(App Store)

> - Amazon has set the bar pretty high for automation in operations and made 2 day shipping a thing we expect from everyone

Mmmmh... I was talking of "scientific progress", you seem to be talking of something different :)

If you recall, my point was that it's very hard to measure "scientific progress" by looking at industry, because industrialization typically happens decades after the actual discoveries/inventions. I think your point is that "industrial progress" may be good, which I'm not debating :)

[lrem]

That are all nice product developments and industry standards, but nothing scientifically relevant. Some actual scientific research from Google is being done in autonomous vehicles, medical imaging, sensors and diagnostics automation, various areas of optimisation and of course information retrieval.

[flukus]

Front end development if anything has regressed with javascript and front end frameworks, about the only way it's improved is in the questionable cross platform story.

The smartphone is obviously a gradual (occasionally not so gradual) improvement on PDA's, app stores existed before them too, although usually belonging to the phone operator or network.

We hear about amazon because they're in the tech industry, I bet if you followed the logistics industry as closely you'd see a lot of improvements. Particularly outside of the US where amazon doesn't have the same footprint.