Monday, April 1, 2013

Fearless Krugman Forecasts (1998 Edition)


In 1988, Paul Krugman stepped up to the plate and told us:

 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 number of jobs for IT specialists will decelerate, then actually turn down; ten years from now, the phrase information economy will sound silly.

(ht ZeroHedge)

4 comments:

  1. Modern Mathusians, will t hey ever learn.

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  2. The perfect reverse indicator!

    Translation: Invest heavily in the internet...

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  3. Is that 1998 or 1988? A 1998 date makes him look a lot worse.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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