Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Paul Krugman's Greatest Prophecy


In 1998 famed stock market prognosticator Paul Krugman gazed lovingly into his foggy crystal ball and saw the future of the internet:

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.

8 comments:

Ares Olympus said...
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Anonymous said...

Given Krugman's inaccuracy, even in his own field of economics, one would be forgiven for not believing a word or comment he has ever made.

Ares Olympus said...
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David Foster said...

I wonder if Krugman was even aware that Henry David Thoreau made a similar comment, about the telegraph, in 1854:

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end,… We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

Stuart Schneiderman said...

Very nice... thanks.

Sam L. said...

Ah, Paullie "The Beard" Krugman. Doesn't know what he doesn't know, and doesn't learn, either.

Anonymous said...

What Krugman and Thoreau didn't take into account, grandmothers and their want of news and now pictures of their grandkids.
James

Ares Olympus said...
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