Outgrowing Software
Software is eating the world meant software will permeate and govern everything, every thing and every industry will be programmable, the world will be full of objects which are linked at a distance and change behaviour regularly, perhaps even with intents of their own. The combination of ML and robotics will spread software even farther into our physical world.<p>The author compares software to consultants, disruptive but not producing meaningful change, I don&#x27;t agree with this - industries are being changed forever or replaced, but the transformation isn’t done yet. The old intermediaries who used to decide what we consume are not dead yet but I think that power will be diffused across society as the cost of production falls and new mediums emerge.<p>Retail - we’re only partway through a transformation but big retailers simply have no reason to exist in a world where you can have a package delivered same day to your door from a warehouse.<p>TV - this will be replaced by other screens which encourage participation (live chat etc), and self-production (youtube), that’s not yet complete.<p>Publishing - the entire knowledge of humanity is available online for the first time, most of it free, and people can publish their thoughts at zero cost. This is a remarkable revolution with profound impacts still reverberating. Gatekeepers like academic publishers are increasingly untenable and out of touch but are not gone yet.<p>Music - democratised as the means of production are cheaper but the incumbents are not dead yet, however their position is becoming untenable.<p>IMO we’re not even halfway through this revolution which is comparable in scope and time to the industrial revolution.