'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992)

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by lkrubner on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @04:25PM (#16632237)

"these multi-company collaborations (Taligent, Itanium, even Power) rarely come to much."

That is a good point. A good example that's happening right now is https://www.roomkey.com/

If you read this you will be amazed by the technology that RoomKey developed:

"Against the Grain: How We Built the Next Generation Online Travel Agency using Amazon, Clojure, and a Comically Small Team"

http://www.colinsteele.org/post/23103789647/against-the-grai...

(Hotelicopter eventually rebranded as RoomKey)

The tech is amazing, but this is a company owned by a consortium of big hotels (Marriot, Sheraton, etc) and they have no interest in feeding a disruptive startup that threatens their business. Rather, they simply want RoomKey to exist so they can use it as leverage in negotiations with Expedia and Orbitz and maybe Kayak. In other words, they want to be able to say "Give us a better percentage of revenue or we will fully fund RoomKey and you will be sorry."

This truth is obvious to the tech at programmer, and they find it immensely frustrating.

It's the mis-aligned incentives that lead to the poisonous politics of these multi-company joint efforts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by wolfgke on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @04:45PM (#16632440)

Perhaps I miss something for cultural reasons (I am not a US citizen nor do I live in the USA):

> The tech is amazing, but this is a company owned by a consortium of big hotels (Marriot, Sheraton, etc) and they have no interest in feeding a disruptive startup that threatens their business. Rather, they simply want RoomKey to exist so they can use it as leverage in negotiations with Expedia and Orbitz and maybe Kayak. In other words, they want to be able to say "Give us a better percentage of revenue or we will fully fund RoomKey and you will be sorry."

> This truth is obvious to the tech at programmer, and they find it immensely frustrating.

Why is this so frustrating to the programmers working there? They can work with interesting technology (e.g. Clojure). Yes, because of the incentives it will probably not become a really huge company, but again: where is the problem if they earn a good salary?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by ACow_Adonis on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @10:09PM (#16634720)

Because technology is the means, not the ends. Many of us work with tech not because we're fetishists for proximity or status of technology, but because we recognise that the technology is a means to actually do something meaningful in the world.

Have no meaning in the work that we do, and job-wise we'll be as happy working with tech as we were flipping burgers at McDonald's: pay and conditions aside obviously.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by wolfgke on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @06:02AM (#16636719)

> Have no meaning in the work that we do

To create a website that serves as an important bollock against other travel websites that endanger the company that pays you is not what I would call meaningless.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by Gravityloss on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @05:46PM (#16633015)

Because you want achieve positive things in your life's work, not pass time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by watwut on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @06:12PM (#16633224)

Boring repetitive project in closure is still boring.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by burg_phil on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @06:09PM (#16633203)

How is this not considered anti-competitive behavior?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:'Fifth Generation' Became Japan's Lost Generation (1992) by lkrubner on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @12:48PM (#16639910)

Well, it would be competitive for Marriot or Sheraton to launch a new company to compete with Expedia or Orbitz. It is somewhat less competitive for them to buy a startup that is already doing that, but if they gave the startup a lot of money, so it could better compete with giants, then that would help increase competition. But to buy a startup only because you want some leverage against Expedia and Orbitz, and to let that startup die, is unfortunate in several ways. It wastes the efforts of a lot of good people, and it allows the total amount of competition in the system to decrease.

[ Parent | on HN ]