Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?
* side-effect free programming (aka functional) will continue to take off; most new languages will embrace read-only by default<p>* React will still be very popular<p>* Typescript will be 2x as popular as today<p>* Rust will grow and be regarded as the &quot;right&quot; way to do anything performant but sadly C++ will still hold the majority<p>* Formal verification will still be mostly a research thing, but maybe a couple prominent tools will be used by a few specific fields<p>* Programmer wages will be slightly lower than today as the field is flooded with talent, but total payout to all programmers will be larger than today (the field will grow, ~2-10x)<p>* Scripting will be important to a much larger portion of jobs<p>* Excel will still be king of data for most businesses<p>* IoT will not take off, but usage in industrial applications will be much larger<p>* HCI will be in the same place: touch screens for phones &amp; tablets, keyboards, touchpads &amp; mice for laptops &amp; PCs<p>* Software will continue to increase in complexity for no real gain, eating any gains in hardware spee. iPhone 11s will run iOS slowly (but still be supported).<p>* Stadia will be dead after ~5 years and the MSFT equivalent never really launched<p>* Gaming will basically be in the same place, but high-budget games will forgo high graphics in favor of good gameplay on a wide range of devices (think minecraft &amp; BotW)<p>* Phones will be basically identical to today, but hopefully at least Apple makes one that is small again and can be used with one hand<p>* Bluetooth will still exist and stuck, but Apple devices will work well together. Nothing better will exist.<p>* More electric cars but still not the majority<p>* Climate change debate will be at basically the same place, a few more countries 100% green, but most not. Death due to climate related issues will increase 2-10x but it won&#x27;t be enough to persuade most countries to take serious action. Still no carbon accountability between nations, and carbon taxes won&#x27;t be a thing<p>* Related to above, immigration and land-value changes due to climate change will be just taking off<p>* Anti-immigration will win politically and immigration from poorer to richer countries will be 1&#x2F;2-1&#x2F;10th the size of today.<p>* Germany is going to be in a recession, sadly. Due to declining demand for their specialized manufacturing, esp. in auto industry.<p>* Village bakeries and butchers in EU will be 1&#x2F;4th of what they are today<p>* There won&#x27;t be a major world war, but tensions will be worse than today<p>* Homelessness will still be a major issue.<p>* There will be no tech-bubble bursting. Software will continue to eat the world.<p>* Automation will have led to much more job loss<p>* Healthcare in the USA will be better but still much worse than most of the developed world<p>* Political polarization will be the same or worse; still first-past-the-post voting; private money still will win elections; still two parties in USA<p>* Facebook won&#x27;t grow as fast as the other tech companies but it&#x27;ll still be bigger than today<p>* A lot more people (proportionally) living in vans &amp; RVs<p>* Capitalism will still be the norm and wealth &amp; income will be even more concentrated<p>* The average person investing in index funds will be gaining ~4% per year in 2029, even though the &quot;economy&quot; will still be growing, somehow almost all the gains will be captured by the wealthiest<p>* China will be in a much stronger position than today, with roughly the same level of oppression. A few other countries will have bought China&#x27;s oppression tech.<p>* The tensions in the middle east won&#x27;t be any better, but won&#x27;t be catastrophically worse<p>* 0-1 nukes will be detonated in a populated area<p>* Solar will still be growing rapidly but still far behind fossil fuels<p>* The Witcher will end after 5 seasons (books content ends midway through 3)<p>* Internet prices and access in the USA will be only slightly better, same with phone plans<p>* Some world leader will have been assassinated by a drone carrying a pipe bomb<p>* Average marital age will be &gt;30 in USA for men and women<p>* Trump wins 2020, democrats 2024-2032<p>* At least one other corruption scandal with Trump that goes nowhere<p>* Disenfranchisement in USA is ~1.5x worse<p>* &quot;AI&quot; will still be making some progress but no singularity, no fully self driving cars, nothing super revolutionary<p>* quantum computers won&#x27;t be having a business impact yet<p>* bike shares, scooter shares, and car shares won&#x27;t take off<p>* No meaningful progress on passenger trains in USA<p>* Windows update will still suck<p>* Apple will still have the best experience but won&#x27;t keep up with MSFT &amp; Google &amp; Amazon in growth<p>* Big three will be MSFT &amp; Amazon &amp; Google in that order<p>* Netflix won&#x27;t be considered a tech company<p>* DIY will be booming, as well as off-grid living<p>* Snow sports will be a lot more expensive as climate change robs snowy days and larger population crowds the mountains<p>* Data leaks will decline but still happen and no significant accountability will happen<p>* News and journalism will be more or less the same, but there will be a few more good options out there that you can pay money for<p>* It&#x27;ll be easier to point to data like actual tax spending in debates with friends instead of just &quot;all the money goes to welfare&quot;, &quot;no it all goes to the military&quot;, &quot;n-uh&quot;, &quot;yu-huh&quot;