Krugman: Internet’s Economic Impact No Greater Than Fax Machine (1998)
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2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
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HN comment orderWhile this article is probably wrong (I don't know what the economic impact of the fax machine was, but I suspect a lot smaller than the Internet), we should probably all be asking ourselves whether the economic impact of our industry is really all that big. Looking at the profit of companies like Google and Facebook overstates the impact for them. They are making tons of money, but a lot of that is just a shift in the location of…
FYI: Digging up old, unrelated things Krugman has said that are wrong isn't going to make your bitcoins worth more. For those of you confused why this is a top item, Krugman wrote a bitcoin piece today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/krugman-the-antiso...
The title has the wrong year. It should be 2005. The quote was: "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."
Full quotes: * 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. * As the rate of technological change in computing slows…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 224
- Total comments
- 279
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-04-16 | Paul Krugman (1998): By 2005 Internet will have no more economic impact than faxFirst breakout | wslh | 79 | 99 |
| 2013-11-09 | Krugman - Why most economists' predictions are wrong (1998) | mike_esspe | 2 | 0 |
| 2013-12-29 | Why most economists' predictions are wrong (1998) | patrickaljord | 26 | 40 |
| 2016-12-19 | Krugman: Internet’s Economic Impact No Greater Than Fax Machine (1998)Best thread | jcuga | 84 | 70 |
| 2022-08-08 | By 1995, it'll be evident that the Internet means as little as fax (1998)Latest 20+ point return | ohjeez | 33 | 70 |