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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

We've already got sort of a dystopia in software engineering. Get into FAANG and you're good for life. Combined FAANG (say 10 biggest tech companies) is over 5 trillion dollars, more than a lot of countries' GDPs with sovereignty.

I suspect in year 2100, we will have no small businesses but giant monolith corporations that will drive everything from content censorship to citizen governance through proxies, everyone's savings are going to be in their stocks which keep increasing at an ever increasing pace. Traditional currencies have been devalued and replaced by corporate-owned coins. Neuralink will ensure utter dominance of a few. Abstract things we consider today are commodicized and traded.

Future kind of sucks to be honest. We're past golden prime years. I just want to run a small tea shop and hang out with the locals.

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A 5 trillion GDP is bigger than every country beside the US and China. Japan is 4.9. Germany is 3.9.

But comparing market cap (wealth) to gdp (production) doesn't really make sense.

It would make more sense to compare revenues maybe?? Top 5 tech revenues would combine to about $1T - which still makes them bigger than all but 16 countries...

Comparing revenue with added value makes no sense, either. Makes more sense to look at profits.

After all, a company buying A for $100 and selling A for $100 will boost revenue, but will not see profit rise. A country in which companies buy A for $100 and sell A for $100 will not see GDP rise.

That's what William Gibson was saying in the early 80s about 2020.

To be honest, 80’s were the prime time. Things went downhill from then. Sure there is progress in medicine and productivity and what not. Just the general state of the world today is worse off than if we were to go back to 80’s with some hindsight on how to run the next 40 years.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a couple weeks. The world is better by nearly any measure than it was 40 years ago.

Suicide rates are generally higher now, signaling a general dissatisfaction and hopelessness in life.

Sure living standard is higher (but with more inequality), most fields are more advanced now, but what's the true purpose if people feel more depressed and inclined to kill themselves?

That’s an important metric for sure, but should we ignore the massive decreases in infant mortality or deaths from hunger, disease, or war?

How did you determine it was generally higher because it appears to be lower in much of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa?

This is a pretty first world-centric perspective. There are slightly higher rates of dissatisfaction and hopelessness but quality of life is drastically improving in the second and third world. More efficient production results in better and more stuff even if the stuff isn't distributed perfectly.

I just keep thinking how terrifying the pandemic would be without the Internet for information, entertainment and connection with friends. We are insanely lucky and we do not take time to appreciate it.

#shitHNsays

Lol, glad I could entertain. Take it with a grain of salt and lighten up all.

For white, affluent, straight Americans, the 80s were probably just fine. For a large number of people who aren't those things, the 80s were hell, though.

The "general state of the world today" is likely to be much better for billions of people than it was in the 80s, however. It's worth keeping that perspective in mind, IMO.

Edit: I've linked one slide deck I think will describe what I'm talking about a bit, but there are certainly more and better sources for this kind of information.

Maybe we can share some sources here as a way to better educate ourselves on this topic?

https://slides.ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-food-provision/...

I see what you’re saying. I’m noticing general trends towards authoritarianism, corruption of public discourse, death of journalism, polarization of politics, rise of conspiracy theories, climate is worse, etc.

If you’re an average Chinese citizen, your life has probably improved dramatically. The auto mechanic down the street is struggling though since newer cars are basically unrepairable.

Totally fair, I just don't want to forget how much we've raised the floor in the last 40 years -- from 44% of all humanity in "absolute poverty" to 9.6% is a huge accomplishment.

There are certainly some concerning trends, but you believe things were better in general during the Cold War before the fall of the Soviet Union? When substantially more people globally lived in poverty? When the US was just coming off the civil rights movements of the 60-70s? When AIDS was rampant, but there was no treatment? When global warming was happening, but it wasn’t widely known or acknowledged?

The majority of brand new cars that the average American is buying is still an ICE-powered automobile that’s nearly as serviceable as the old ones, sometimes requiring more advanced diagnostics tools, but far safer and more reliable.

Worldwide, life is better for billions of people.

Life in the United States was better for most Americans in the 80's than it is now. That was the beginning of the decoupling of productivity from pay, and it has been ongoing ever since.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

It's ok to both acknowledge the developmental progress of the rest of the world and lament the backsliding of the US.

I am happy for the the fact that lot of people have been lifted from poverty.

What I am not happy about is all of us, all 8 billion of us, being able to afford everything we can and hoard useless electronics and plastic doo-dads, waste a ton of resources and live an excessive life. But, "We in the west have it so they should also" is a controversial take on this.

We as Americans waste a lot of resources. That shouldn't be the role model for others.

That's not the same thing as "basic ability to survive".

When billions of people couldn't buy food and don't have clean water to drink, cries of, "But I'm not maximally benefitting from my own productivity increases!" come across as relatively unimportant.

The phrase that caught my eye was, "the general state of the world today is worse off." I don't think that meshes with observed reality over the past 40 years for the humans living on this planet, if you're not white, affluent, straight and American.

Funny story, what is Fortune 1? Still not a tech company (not for long).

Small businesses haven’t been wiped out by FAANG though. It’s not a zero sum game.

I wonder how many small businesses and shops have been wiped out by Amazon.

Yes, on average its not a zero sum game. Ask your corner bookstore if its not a zero sum game. Local effects are real.

Just in another thread I was greeted by how much of a bargian GSuite is. For $5/month, you get world class in the cloud office/productivity tools + gazillion other services and email, SSO. No other SaaS can compete with this.

Github with free private repos, why would anyone choose another competitor? It has all the things and more.

> For $5/month, you get world class in the cloud office/productivity tools + gazillion other services and email, SSO.

And if they ever decide to lock you out, you lose everything. That cheap price comes with a cost.

GSuite can't just "lock you out" if you're paying, that's why there is a contractual relationship. There are all sorts of third party business relationships (e.g. banks, HR systems, counterparties, other SaaS products, etc.) that all companies depend on running smoothly, I don't see why GSuite is any different.

The people who really got wiped out were Borders and Barnes & Noble. If you’re a small bookstore you actually have an niche now.

You can’t compete with Amazon’s virtually infinite selection and they can’t compete with your local presence and the physical experience and customer service you offer to your patrons. If you’re incapable of doing a good job with any of those then you’re toast, but then again maybe you shouldn’t have been running a small bookstore anyways.

I asked the guy at the corner bookstore if it was zero sum, and he said no. Then he offered to sell me an Econ 101 textbook, but I got it on Amazon for 1/2 the price.

We both wonder how many shops have been wiped out. I also wonder how many online businesses have been created. I work with many online vendors who sell on Amazon that would not have been viable if they had to open a brick and mortar retail location.

I suspect the reason you're downvoted is because so many small businesses HAVE been wiped out by FAANGs, and other megacorps. I mean, just look at the effects of the pandemic. Many independent retail stores in my city have closed up shop but Amazon is booming like never before. Even local restaurants that have switched to delivery, it's like they're barely scraping by (if they haven't already closed) but DoorDash etc. are raking it in.

Were they wiped out by the pandemic, or Amazon?

> Combined FAANG (say 10 biggest tech companies) is over 5 trillion dollars, more than a lot of countries' GDPs with sovereignty.

That's apples and oranges. More apt is the comparison of FAANG revenue to GDP.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves---GDP is a rate! The units are often quoted as dollars [or equivalent] but they're actually dollars/year. Or, put another way, they're the rate, but integrated over a definite time period (1 year) from which you can only extract an average rate.

It may not necessarily be a bad thing, small firms can be very exploitative of employees and fail to provide many of the safeguards and systems that large employers provide. More large employers are subject to more intense regulatory scrutiny, so, I don't really think that small businesses will be some kind of utopia for workers.

The flip side of that is that large firms have no incentive to provide better pay or benefits since they are less connected to the community. This is especially true for lower income individuals since the supply of lower skill workers is not constrained.

Except that, generally speaking, larger companies do indeed provide better pay and benefits than smaller firms in the same line of business.

From experience, the small (but not sole proprietor type) firms are owned by people whose community is other small firm owners. They're almost a landed gentry of store and factory owners in rural America.

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