Re:The Refragmentation
by nostrademons on Saturday January 02, 2016 @08:31PM
(#10829045)
It's not unreasonable for everyone to go into one sector, and then for that sector to eat the entire rest of the economy (a la a16z's "software is eating the world" investment thesis). Imagine that software is an innovation akin to assembly lines. If you started a company in 1840 that used assembly lines, you were going into a very specific industry: textiles. If you started a company in 1890 that used assembly lines, it could be one of dozens of industries: textiles, steel, oil, tobacco, meatpacking, etc. If you started a company in 1930 that didn't use assembly lines, you were insane and destined for failure.
What's happened, historically, is that as a technology diffuses into new ways of doing things, old industries simply die out, and then the new industry differentiates into replacements for it. Specialized production in the middle ages was divided into guilds (many of which are family names now): you had smiths, cobblers, bakers, butchers, weavers, etc. When the industrial revolution happened, there was simply "industry"; it was only later that this differentiated into the steel industry to replace smiths, the meatpacking industry to replace butchers, the textile industry to replace weavers, etc.
Similarly, when software got started in the 50s, there was only the "software industry". Now, 60 years later, it's differentiating into search, social, messaging, e-commerce, developer tools, homesharing, adtech, fintech, ridesharing, delivery, etc. And it's likely there's more to come: if I had to locate us in the history of the industrial revolution, I'd say we're around 1890 or 1900. At that point, the great industries of the mechanical age (mass-produced automobiles, airlines, plastics, radio, television, recorded music) had yet to be invented.
What's happened, historically, is that as a technology diffuses into new ways of doing things, old industries simply die out, and then the new industry differentiates into replacements for it. Specialized production in the middle ages was divided into guilds (many of which are family names now): you had smiths, cobblers, bakers, butchers, weavers, etc. When the industrial revolution happened, there was simply "industry"; it was only later that this differentiated into the steel industry to replace smiths, the meatpacking industry to replace butchers, the textile industry to replace weavers, etc.
Similarly, when software got started in the 50s, there was only the "software industry". Now, 60 years later, it's differentiating into search, social, messaging, e-commerce, developer tools, homesharing, adtech, fintech, ridesharing, delivery, etc. And it's likely there's more to come: if I had to locate us in the history of the industrial revolution, I'd say we're around 1890 or 1900. At that point, the great industries of the mechanical age (mass-produced automobiles, airlines, plastics, radio, television, recorded music) had yet to be invented.