[bugbuddy]

The Age of Diminishing Return for Digital Innovations began right after the smartphone and it has only become more pronounced since.

My layperson’s prediction for the next big thing is cheaper and cheaper techs. I believe that there will be a race to the bottom. Both hardware and software will become commodity. Even all these new AI technologies will become commodities. The true Cyberpunk take is that technology is boring and commonplace.

[sublinear]

My take on this is different.

Lots of amazing hardware is still way too expensive to make it into ordinary consumer hands, or hasn't even been invented yet.

What's keeping the future bleak is a low business appetite for risk. The wringing out of current tech for every last cent will eventually stop when there's no other way to profit but actual R&D. Until then, yeah things will be boring nonsense like AI and ridiculous marketing. We're in the doldrums until some heads start to roll.

[poisonborz]

What would be examples of such hardware? Any exciting tech is commoditised fast. Vision Pro would go down $500 in a few years if there would be demand.

[archeantus]

I can see that happening. My vision for the future is that voice assistants and LLMs will converge into something as useful and powerful as “Computer” in Star Trek. And that this assistant that will know you and all of your accounts/online profiles, will only need a microphone and an internet connection to function.

So the Apple Watch, for example, could be everything you need to carry around because the voice assistant can literally do everything you can possible think of (besides consume social media and YouTube content).

[randmeerkat]

> So the Apple Watch, for example, could be everything you need to carry around because the voice assistant can literally do everything you can possible think of (besides consume social media and YouTube content).

An all knowing ever listening assistant strapped to your wrist, completely connected to all of your accounts financial, medical, social media, monitoring your vitals, measuring your acceleration, deceleration, steps, altitude, and gps position, bundling it up, and then selling it to whoever wants it for pennies on the dollar.

[apantel]

This is going to be an absolutely enormous market, and it would be really good if an open source option wins it, instead of another big tech walled garden.

The good news is that it’s a software solution, not hardware. Open source can only win in software. So it has a chance.

Open source, self-hosted, all-knowing assistant connected to the Internet, that doesn’t leak data to companies, and that filters out all their ads, messaging, and CTA’s.

Tech-savvy people will be able to have one of these pretty soon even if big tech wins the broader market.

[tsimionescu]

Open source can never "win" a consumer market because a team of engineers is never going to be able to live off of giving away software for free, nor can you sell free software to the public at large. Open source works in B2B contexts because businesses either collaborate on building infrastructure they need to sell their core product, or because you can sometimes sell support and commercial licenses to businesses.

This is precisely why Linux has overwhelmingly won the server market for at least a decade, but it is still a bit player in consumer devices (except Android, which is barely open source and is controlled by a huge corporation selling our data).

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Open source can never "win" a consumer market

Perhaps open source doesn't devalue consumers in a way that they are a thing to be won - not even in aggregate.

The network devices in my home are open source, as is most of the OS. With my customers it's a mix - but where there is open source, it pretty much just works.

Meanwhile, any complaining is typically due to the ongoing poor treatment by Microsoft, Intuit, et al.

[tsimionescu]

> Perhaps open source doesn't devalue consumers in a way that they are a thing to be won - not even in aggregate.

You can win a market, that doesn't mean you're winning the participants. You could at best be winning them over, which is a positive for anyone.

> The network devices in my home are open source, as is most of the OS.

The software on those devices is open source, or in other words, the companies selling your devices are using OSS to power them (or you yourself installed software mostly created for this purpose by similar companies).

[pjmlp]

UNIX has won the server market, Linux happens to make it free beer.

[ffgjgf1]

Open source software is only really widely successful in areas where it’s a cost center rather than the end product, though.

[randmeerkat]

> This is going to be an absolutely enormous market, and it would be really good if an open source option wins it, instead of another big tech walled garden.

That’s a nice thought, but IBM would probably just buy it then kill it.

[philwelch]

> self-hosted

That seems like the sticking point with LLM’s as they exist now.

[add-sub-mul-div]

I think it's worse than that. It's an age when technological innovation is not only diminishingly useful, it's actively, primarily, intended to hurt our interests. Surveillance and enshittification and advertising have become the reason for innovation, and actual benefit to consumers is secondary and shallow.

[fumar]

Who is stopping innovation that you deem valuable or of a greater virtue?

[add-sub-mul-div]

The general tenor of how capitalism has evolved to work in this decade.

[bugbuddy]

Welcome to your Cyberpunk future.

[koonsolo]

My prediction is that the combination of AI and robotics will conquer specific business applications, and in time will make its way into consumer markets. Think iRobot & robot lawnmowers, but for way broader applications.

[namaria]

That's the current playbook isn't it? OpenAI has basically said they're trying to bootstrap robotic intelligence. It remains to be seen if they can manage that before the cost of running huge gpu farms brings them down.

[nradov]

Within the next couple decades there will be another disruptive innovation in a new hardware form factor. Maybe not AR/VR goggles but something else that no one beyond a few visionaries is even thinking about today.

[andsoitis]

Brain implants.

[tim333]

I have to differ with you on AI. We seem on the verge of sci fi movie stuff.