It's widely known that, as hardware became faster, (most) software became slower. Some people blame programmers for being careless with resources. But I think this is just one manifestation of a deeper trend: doing the bare minimum to meet the requirements of the user.
Two broader connections come to mind. First is that many people predicted that automation would grant us vastly more leisure time. Instead, we work roughly the same number of hours, and just produce more value per hour.
-
-
Second, when cars became commonplace, people assumed they would shorten commute times. Instead, people just started living further away from the office (and from each other).
Show this thread -
In other words, the effect of a technology depends less on what people *want*, and more on what they will *put up with*. We will put up with a 1hr commute, 8hrs of work, 1 bug per KLOC (or whatever), and 100ms of latency. Anything better than that is, in some sense, wasteful!
Show this thread -
And this has been part of our thinking around Sia from the start: if we make storage 10x cheaper, people won't store the same amount of data for 1/10th the cost. They'll store 10x more data and pay the same. What new applications will that enable? I'm very curious to find out.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.