What was an insane idea then, is an insane idea now, too. Semiconductors hello. Democracy underdog next to homogeneity-driven monoculutre. Anyway, how am I supposed to read this? NYtimes has an annoying paywall and my CSS ninja magic seems like an unnecessary step to get to the matter
All this talk that every investment pays off in the end is faulty and dangerous. Many investments don't pan out, 95% of the firms you see in the ticker this decade might be gone, and yet everyone is very confident is underwriting these "losses for future gains" but really it's economies of scale. It doesn't cost MSFT much more to run the GPU than to turn it on in the first place.
These gains do make companies lazy whilst they have padding-as-an advantage until other firms catch up. Basically breakthroughs being buffered by 1st place running as slowly as possible without letting 2nd place catch up. Which is sorta antithetical to the scarcity of time and life itself, but totally thetical to stretching out innovation over decades because engineering hours are so "costly."
The Beatles did not tour with their psychic stuff at all. I have a hard time accepting this as the "right time." Guessing about "what other albums would have come out" neglects the other half of this cranium which is live music.