Mobile, web, smart apps, bots – A discussion, what's the win?
Back in the early 1990's I was driving around the local area one summer evening in my modified ford sierra and I noticed a young lady staring curiously at something she was carrying in her hand, the look on her face was one of excitement, optimism and awe, I thought at the time something special is happening to this person, I think she was thinking about the potential of a mobile device. I still remember thinking that maybe she has some ideas and I ought to talk to her about it. I never did talk to this person although I hope their mobile device lived up to their expectations! What I'm describing here is a certain excitement of possibility, some people describe this as the gift of possibility.
In terms of brain function I think this person in the 1990's was experiencing similar excitement we see users experience today with their new iPhone. Immediately I felt that this hardware could provide a certain unity of purpose and collaboration amongst humans, I thought this device is definitely going to help the situations we face together on this planet I also thought that it would be a more potent tool once it became ubiquitous, maybe I should consider becoming a mystic for my retirement side hustle, what do you think?
I remember buying a copy of a computer magazine around the year 2000, it had a 700mb CDROM on the front (a good reason to buy the magazine in itself!) It had a .avi file with a guy sat on a chair giving a talk to the camera about the web, among other things he said 'No ones making any money from e-commerce' whilst he was right enough (pontificating) at the time, we can now see that online trading is a big part of the early history of the web. Back to my metaphoric crystal ball, I think that the web is so far about 50% exploited in terms of what it will do for us, whilst it's difficult to quantify we have some great functionality and I'm expecting a lot more over the next few decades.
What's the (current) win of the web?
So far we (the tech industry) have provided people with their own servants (for a fee) better information, more timely information, simulations, discussion, meetings, messaging and other valuable services including gaming, entertainment and video streaming.
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