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I think this is directionally correct. But we tend to remember the technologies which became mainstream after the bubble burst and forget those that fizzled or found a much less world-changing niche.

Blockchain, NFTs and 3D printing are still around and have vacuumed up billions and billions without the average person being able to tell an impact on their lives.

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3d printing has gone somewhat mainstream unlike the others. Manufacturers use it and it's somewhat common to see stuff that's been 3d printed being sold or created as small run prototypes.

Yeah and that’s exactly what I mean. It’s found its place and is a useful technology. But it has not revolutionized entire industries like the internet, smartphone etc

VR is good example of money being burned and middling adoption to a not that big population. For average person it has ended up something cool, but in the end not common and forgettable. And I am not sure if it even was a bubble, but selected players just investing in it.

Exactly. Right now it’s easy to look at it as a relatively niche thing.

But at the time it was going to be the next big thing transforming everything.

Same as 3D printing. Certainly cool and useful in some niche contexts, but it has not disrupted manufacturing.

I would argue it disrupted engineering. So many videos on YouTube can be found of people cutting out expensive molds (for example) and getting a product to market faster and cheaper. And this is happening in companies as well (Prusa released an enterprise grade printer not long ago).

At the same time, Printables and MakerWorld are flooded with…toys. They gamified their platforms and a ton of “thingy” models, ex. generic planter pots (some of them just renders, never even printed!) is the result.

This certainly hides the benefit but I very much think it’s there.

There is places and things that work for 3d printing. Very small scale manufacturing. Prototypes. But actually selling those is somewhat hard and not scalable market. And home printing... Yeah that sounds like hobbyist to me with corresponding market.

On other side you get to complex topologies and very specialised parts. Again pretty hard to scale and limited demand.

In the end it is manufacturing and manufacturing is huge. But also generally does not have great margins. It has lot of competition. So 3D printing would end up there with others say makers of CNC machines, various presses and so on. Multi-billion dollar industry, but not tech.

This is precisely what I mean though. It's a technology that has found its place and is definitely useful and a value-add to society.

But if we look at the types of predictions made in the early days (print a house in a day for under $5k, print any food you want at home, obviating factories you can make anything at home...), almost none of that has come through.

And that doesn't mean it's a bad technology. Most technologies don't revolutionize the average person's life, but can still change corners of civilization.

But compare that to the internet, which has literally changed how we do basically everything in our daily lives.

I think the point is that most technologies are like 3D printing while the current narrative is that AI will be more like the internet.

Influencers, streamers, crypto …

Housing is back …

Dotcom came back…

Nothing was a bubble. Dotcom was into a new paradigm shift with mobile in less then a decade. These aren’t even significant timelines when you think about it.

So you pull out of the AI hype today, fine. These past recent bubbles show that everything ramps back up within five years.

AI-is-hype people are delusional. The computer has never been able to do what it’s doing today. We could only dream of it.

Eventually coming back doesn’t mean it wasn’t a bubble that popped.

Precisely the article's point. AOL may not have been the successful company it could've been, but it did get millions of households online, which became infrastructure for the successful companies we all know today.

> AI-is-hype people are delusional. The computer has never been able to do what it’s doing today. We could only dream of it.

Sure, but do the math. It doesn’t work out yet. This stuff burns money and energy. Either revenue has to go up A LOT or costs do have to come down A LOT (or quality has to suffer by using smaller models).

If we assume that every American will pay 20 USD per month for AI that's already 100bn per year.

Electricity will become very cheap during the day at least with solar continuing its declining trajectory.

Except we're killing all solar and wind projects in the US :(

If I assume every American pays me 20 USD, I'm a billionaire too.

But that assumption would be as silly as yours.

>Housing is back … Nothing was a bubble.

Ironic how you can contradict yourself without realizing. The fact that something "came back", meant it WAS a bubble that popped.

Also nothing says that same thing can't be a bubble over and over again. Especially something as fundamental and old as housing. Those in power might even want it to be boom and bust cycle.

I think there's a big difference between things that have always been bought and sold (housing, oil, food, minerals, etc.) and actual net-new technology that may or may not pay off on its promise.

The former can be overvalued (see housing pre-2008), but we'll never come to the conclusion that it's useless or only needed in niche use cases. In that case, the item itself isn't really the bubble. The bubble is in what enables the irrational prices (e.g. subprime mortgages).

The latter can definitely be a bubble where the technology just isn't useful for a given use case (or at all).