Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by langsoul-com 1004 days ago
Interesting how this is only really a problem today, 10-20 years ago most of what we built and shared was things we wanted to build. Things that were cool, and awesome.

But now we have to explicitly say it's OK that what we build isn't a unicorn start up idea. Not feasible for a global business. Hacker news comments always include how the idea can't be a business or is pointless, impractical etc.

Is it because money, wealth and status is becoming the number 1 thing on everyone's mind now?
4 comments
jelling 1004 days ago
Yes. The people involved in tech changed to a non-trivial degree over the last 15 years.

I grew up in a family that made software and I’ve been a professional myself for over twenty years.

The post-2008 cheap money era brought a huge influx of people that, at best, were not technology enthusiasts or tinkerers. A similar thing happened in the dot com era but a lot of those people got pushed out by the crash. We’ll see what happens this time.

link
sanderjd 1004 days ago
Isn't this just your bubble growing up over the years?

Like, a decade or two ago, most people were trying to make a living, and that's true today too. But perhaps the people you knew and heard from a couple decades ago were younger and less focused on that than they are today.

I was pretty into passion projects and stuff in college, but I'm not very interested in those things now. They were just a better use of my time then; they really aren't a good use of my time now.

link
fasterik 1004 days ago
We should be wary of nostalgia for an idealized past that never existed. If you look at the semiconductor industry in the 1960s, the personal computer revolution in the 1970s and 1980s, and the dot-com boom in the 1990s, there was always a mix of motivations for working on technology.
link
sanderjd 1004 days ago
Yep, I don't think "people weren't trying to make money in tech 20 years ago" really passes the smell test.
link
analog31 1004 days ago
It could be that what we're making is different today. When I was a teenager, there was no Internet. The thing we made, was the thing we made.

Today, what we're making is the exhibition of the thing we're making. I'm guilty of this, thinking about the blog that I'll write about something, when it doesn't even work.

And is it wrong? I wouldn't enjoy playing music nearly as much if I didn't have a chance to perform in public once in a while.

link