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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

What a wonderful read.

I find myself pining for a lot of the "old days" when anything seemed possible and it was open and exciting. You could DO surprisingly, not a lot, but everything still felt possible.

Now everything seems trapped in advertising dominated closed box. Login and live in this limited little space...

The internet is still there, I can still put up a site that isn't covered with ads. I wish I could surf just that internet and so on.

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I'm around the age these guys were during this story. I feel the exact opposite way. I spent middle/high school feeling similarly, only pining for the 2000s ("wow, with smartphones and the internet the industry was wide open with opportunity, anything was possible. Now it seems like everything's been done and giants rule the world"). However, the GenAI boom completely changed my mind. I feel like we're the most lucky of all the generations of engineers so far considering how many crazy things are now possible with just a few determined individuals.

What is now possible that wasnt before, other than writing really really bad code fast?

This has always been one of the secret sauces that some startups use. Sometimes you just need a semi-functional app at the right place at the right time.

I don't really think AI solves the engineering problems of our day. Compared to the impact of the tape measure, slide rule or digital calculator, I wager AI will be a blip in the engineering landscape.

you should try to find a job today and see what the impact is already let alone in a year or two…

4 out of 5 technical interviews I have done in the past 3 years were whiteboard reviews. I'm really not that worried about Joe Shmoe using ChatGPT to cram for a Typescript examination.

I came of age in the 8-bit era of the early 80s, rode the Internet wave of the 90s and early 2000s, kind of missed the mobile wave but spent that time developing ideas that would eventually turn out to be useful for AI, and now I'm having great fun on the AI wave. I'm happy to have grown up and lived when I did, but I feel that each era of my life has had its own unique opportunities, excitement and really interesting technical problems to work on. And perhaps most importantly, great people to work with.

https://kagi.com/smallweb

Thank you.

> I wish I could surf just that internet and so on.

You just solved it for me.

I've been wondering what to use 90s.dev for.

That's it.

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