It’s easy to exaggerate the near-term impact of something new and at the same time underestimate its long-term impact.
A quarter-century ago many got swept up in the hype surrounding the internet and its potential for exciting and scary changes.
I remember people proclaiming the end of in-person shopping. To assess the value of the latest dot-com company one needed to measure eyeballs and clicks. Profit and loss statements were no match for the unproven promise of a brave new world.
Yet, looking 10 and 20 years past this period, I doubt anyone predicted ordering a ride on a phone.
Not to mention that those phones could run on software from Google.
How could they? After all, we were still pressing hard buttons on our phones multiple times to toggle to the right letter. And Google had just been released as another way to find things on the World Wide …