We know that technology has permeated every gap in our lives in the 15 years since the iPhone was launched. Technology has reshaped politics, industry, leisure, culture, and people’s interactions, for better or for worse.
Technological advances have been accompanied by this mysterious reality. Technology in the iPhone era has rarely been unconditionally successful.
I argue that Meta, with its Facebook and Instagram apps, is the only consumer internet company in the smartphone era that has emerged as an unquestionable winner in terms of popularity and financial vitality.
(Although the company was founded in 2004, it is classified as the iPhone era because Facebook became widespread in the smartphone era.)
All other consumer internet companies in the iPhone era get incomplete grades due to a relatively small number of users, suspicious finances, uncertain growth prospects, risk of death, or all of the above. And even Meta is worried that it may not be healthy, as my colleague Mike Isaac wrote on Tuesday. Well, meta contributes to some serious problems in our world.
I know this sounds ridiculous. In the last 15 years, technology has won everything. Why are there so few tech companies that you can be relatively confident that you will stick to middle age?
I will spend the rest of this newsletter on my point. Feel free to agree with me or shout (in honor!) At ontech @ nytimes.com.
First, we’re making a big leap to exclude Google’s web search, e-commerce sites such as Amazon and Alibaba, and Netflix streaming video from our ratings. They are probably the winners of long-lasting technology, but they belong to the first generation of the Internet. It also does not count technologies that are primarily used by businesses. I’m only looking at consumer companies that were toddlers when their smartphones first hit our pockets or weren’t born yet and whose popularity was supercharged by those little supercomputers.
Beyond the meta, the hottest apps in the last 15 years have a huge asterisk.
Billions of people use YouTube, but it’s not a great business given its size and influence. If Google didn’t buy a video site in 2006, a year before the iPhone went on sale, YouTube couldn’t exist today.
Twitter is influential, but not so widely used and is a chronic minor. Snapchat is a hotbed of creative online ideas, relentlessly copied by Meta and others. But it may not last long, and it doesn’t prove it’s a competent company. Uber and Spotify are two examples of good technology that is a bad business. They aren’t consistently generating profits, and some keen tech watchers believe that these business models simply don’t work.
The e-commerce epidemic is coming and going. Chinese ubiquitous apps such as WeChat and Meituan are unlikely to be globalized. TikTok — Whether its popularity will last, whether it can make money consistently, and Concerns about Chinese ownership Haunt the app forever.
Will these iPhone-era stars appear 10 years from now, or will they go the way of Yahoo and Myspace? (For Gen Z readers, Yahoo and Myspace used to be less popular websites.)
It leaves us meta. Again, the company has its problems, but so far it has adapted many times to people’s rapidly changing online habits. The company is also very, very, very good at making money. recently.
You can’t be a winner without the ability to turn popularity into cash and nail people to your app as your tastes change. Few companies have been able to do both consistently over the last decade.
Why are there so many technologies and few award-winning tech companies?
Due to the nature of innovation, many roadkills may be left behind. In the previous era of technology, perhaps only one or a few permanent companies emerged. Microsoft and Apple were big winners from the move of computer people to their homes. Google, Amazon and Netflix were first-generation web stars. There were many other tech and technology companies that were forgotten along the way.
And beyond the technology people use for their business, more winners have been born in the last 15 years. Cloud computing, an abbreviation for digital tasks performed over the Internet rather than dedicated computers owned by people or businesses, has recreated Internet services and corporate technology. Cloud computing has also enriched many tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce.
Artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and new inventions of technology that further blur the line between the virtual and real worlds have the potential to spawn many thriving technology companies. But that didn’t happen in the reality of the technology that exists today.
The Internet and smartphones were a revolution that changed the world. And the medium is more durable and powerful than any part of it.
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Before going …
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The technology is still abundant. There are also concerns. Google and Microsoft reported that revenue growth was slower than the 2021 turmoil. However, my colleague reported that he was almost confident that the company could stay healthy because of the dim economic outlook and other issues.
Counterpoint: Shopify, which helps businesses set up online shops, said that Overestimation How many people stick to the e-commerce habits they learned during the pandemic.Its financial results were disclosed on Wednesday terribleAnd Shopify said it would fire 10% of its staff.
read More from DealBook.
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Tech is changing the language of ASL even faster. My colleague Amanda Morris writes about how video calls, smartphones and social media have helped accelerate the transformation of American Sign Language. She writes that evolution, including tighter signs that fit on the screen of a small smartphone, can create cracks between generations of Deaf culture.
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Say goodbye to “oof”: This is the sound of a character dying in the Roblox virtual world. However, Roblox said Tuesday that video game news site Kotaku had its signature sound removed due to a “license issue.” report.. Roblox fans have launched an online campaign to regain the “oof”.
Embrace this
At a food festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia A terribly strange oyster mascot The name Pearl. The mascot oyster shell costume has at least 13 eyes and dark red lips. I love it.
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