I'm speechless. Well, almost. Apple revolutionized the music industry, how music is sold, and how it's listened to. It revolutionized phones. Its iPad changed consumer computing, media consumption, user interface expectations.... Five year olds are totally at home on an iPad and think a screen without touch "isn't working". As they get older, all screens will have to conform to the new reality. They revolutionized shopping for music, movies, and apps. They revolutionized brick and mortar retailing with the most profitable stores of all time.
And Google has changed human access to information so profoundly that I can't adequately explain to my kids what it was like growing up in a world so cut off from things other people knew. Google Earth is something from science fiction. Street View lets me get to know my way around a town before I travel there. I can take my kids for a walk past my old homes in four different countries. Astonishing. And Google's self-driving cars may make driving off-limits to humans in another few years.
Then there's Microsoft, with thousands of smart people working for decades with billions of dollars of resources to work with---the most powerful of them all until what feels like "recently" to me. And the evidence of their innovative power: we have one of several game platforms, a billion-dollar write-off tablet that they can't give away, and a kind of keyboard that accounts for less than 1% of keyboards in use today. Oh, and other stuff that "didn't become as popular as these".
I'm not saying they never came up with anything new. I'm saying that relative to their size and resources, their innovations were trivial. Their huge impact on business, on consumer use of the Internet, on the tech industry, on governments, and so on, came not from revolutionary innovation but primarily from their relentless efforts to monopolize markets.
Of course, the lifeblood of a company is profit, not innovation. Without subsidies from ad revenues, Google's innovations could dry up quickly, and cheap knock-offs could eventually take away most of the markets Apple has revolutionized. But even if their profits prove short-lived, their amazing contributions to society will live on. I doubt many in the future will feel the same about Microsoft's contributions.
Since 1996 we've gotten deep learning, the iPhone, Google (search, maps, translate, youtube), bitcoin, landing rockets for re-use, social networks, and the ability for the whole world to switch to remote work without advance notice (and yes those are all software innovations).
Let's not discount universal access to information, first of all. I'm 28 and when I was in high school 10 years ago, it was right about the time you could now find the quadratic formula by searching the Web, but before you could Google how to write a resume, find a good doctor in your area, or read blogs about developing better study habits. I think the world must have been a little darker before the Google age.
Then there's universal distribution of software (the web, mobile devices) and the relative ease of developing niche apps today. The transformation of the world by (good) software is just beginning.
I see Facebook (connecting the world), Google (all the world's info in one place), Amazon, Alibaba (shopping), Microsoft.
What are of examples of this for the near future (10 to 20 years)
Yes, software is eating the world. I was hoping for more specific responses from today's perspective.
I believe we are in the early phase of the adoption curve for #2 replace email- slack, #4 internet drama- netflix, hbo etc, #5 next steve jobs- elon musk.
this won't be seen anymore, euro-timezone for the win, but anyway:
1., google did produce google search. i don't think there is a more important product in the last 20 years when it comes to the knowledge of the world.
2., apple's iphone is being used as a platform for health services (to stay in your health example). there are health startups targeting iOS, big pharma as well - patient adherence programs, even diabetes hardware, just look:
http://www.bgstar.com/web/ibgstar
3., facebook, twitter facilitate human interaction. see the arab spring, it was not facebook specifically, but the network effect within it helped the people in egypt, etc. to post, share, discuss.
4., even small examples count, just look at BingoCardCreator with it's HN fame. it targets teachers, do you need something more nobler, grandiose than that?
No, I cannot say my life has been enhanced by those types of applications.
I'm talking stuff we take for granted like email, the web, word processing. These things have enhanced my life. The web alone opens a whole library of information and I am actually thankful because without it I'd know only a fraction of what I currently know.
Similar revolutions will happen and I fully believe something like Google Glass will be the medium.
Just as a thought, look at everything you use computers for now and think what it'd be like if they wasn't there? Even the most basic tasks should be considered.
Self driving cars. Glass. Google Now. Maps. Plus all the internal innovation such as new database technologies, custom routers, computer science research, and other technology.
YES! The greatest invention since fire is going to replace Google and programmers and chefs and will end poverty and solve climate change. Here’s a thread about a gabazillion use cases! Yes, it’s cool, I get it. But please move on. Build something useful, put it use as a real product and show us.
Google and Facebook made real dents in the universe? Well, I see your Google and FB and will raise you a humble washing machine and the invention of the pill. Both changed the world for half the population :-)
I think you're overlooking some decent wins because they weren't world changers for general consumers.
For hardware, I think all of the following could be considered a success:
- Pixel phone
- Chromecast
- Chromebooks (as school computers)
For software:
- Youtube TV seems to be a massive hit.
- Google Classroom has a lot of users in the ed tech space.
- Just in my social circle, I'm noticing more and more people using Google Photos in the past few years (even iOS users). I think might be due to growing usage of Google One.
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