[infixed]

In their conversation, they bring up mobile as a recent platform shift that caused a lot of disruption. But I think it's interesting to remember how slow that took. The iPhone was released in 2007, but the real winners of mobile were launched years later -- Uber (2010), Snapchat (2011), and TikTok (2016) -- and those winners took several more years to even start to gain true traction in the market.

I don't think a lot of people back in 2007 could have predicted that the biggest thing to come from mobile would be an app that let teens remix music videos and share with their friends.

This is why I think it is a little pointless to try and create mental models for what products and features to build to capitalize on AI (though it can be fun). It's so early that we're not capable of understanding what's possible yet. If anything, we're probably at the viral "fart app" stage that mobile was in for its first few years.

[disgruntledphd2]

>I don't think a lot of people back in 2007 could have predicted that the biggest thing to come from mobile would be an app that let teens remix music videos and share with their friends.

I think that the biggest thing to come from mobile was always available location, exemplified by Google Maps which already existed before mobile happened. Many of the most successful apps relied on this.

TikTok is different, in that it could have existed on desktop (but would have looked very different) whereas Uber (for example) definitely couldn't.

[another-dave]

I don't use TikTok so maybe I'm offbase, but I tihnk while technically it could've existed without mobile, socially I'm not so sure.

I wouldn't under estimate the amount of friction reduced in having an app on your phone which a) is always with you, b) can also record top quality video and c) has a data plan good enough to upload there and then.

[eru]

Something like Uber could have been built on top of SMS, though. It didn't necessarily need Smartphones.

(Perhaps SMS plus some feature-phone-level of GPS integration.)

[gbasin]

TikTok's success is primarily about the creator tools, not the viewing experience. Making video editing mobile-friendly and accessible to more people is what enabled the proliferation of short-form content.

[stevofolife]

Wait…how do you expect TikTok users to upload videos so easily if it is on desktop? TikTok wouldn’t be TikTok anymore.

[totetsu]

I am constantly surprised of how prescient my Media studies professor was back in 2007 about how everything has shaking out since then. "Your data is valuable don't give it away" is ringing in my ears as I give all my data away to openai

[danenania]

Your individual data isn't valuable. Your data bundled with the data of thousands-to-millions of other people? That's valuable.

[totetsu]

incidentally

>What if I want to keep my history on but disable model training?

We are working on a new offering called ChatGPT Business that will opt end-users out of model training by default. In the meantime, you can opt out from our use of your data to improve our services by filling out this form. Once you submit the form, new conversations will not be used to train our models

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrnC-_A7JFs4LbIuze...

[marban]

Even in 2007, he was ~50 years late.

[eru]

Data can be copied. Giving your data away doesn't make it less valuable to you.

(There might be other concern, eg around privacy, about giving your data away. But worrying about value isn't really one of them as an individual.)

[raincole]

> But I think it's interesting to remember how slow that took. The iPhone was released in 2007, but the real winners of mobile were launched years later -- Uber (2010), Snapchat (2011), and TikTok (2016)

You mean how fast that took, right?

[ghaff]

And really something more like 2010 is probably a better date for when the iPhone really took off with the 3GS generation. There were obviously earlier smartphones as well (Blackberry, Treo) but they weren't really mainstream devices and didn't especially enable third-party apps.

So, yeah, there was a maybe five year (and certainly less than ten) period when smartphones went from a fairly niche thing to ubiquity which is very fast compared to technology adoption generally.

[heymijo]

Might be worth looking at the limiting factors that caused the delay between iPhone (2007) and the advent of Uber, et al.

Then overlay that with the limiting factors for AI/LLMs.

I had a third-party logistics startup in 2007 that I would have loved to turn into Uber for shipping, but it would be at least a few years before the cell networks and ownership of smartphones reached a point where it was possible.

I don't know if there are limiting factors that will delay LLMs potential to disrupt the status quo.

[nonrandomstring]

> I don't think a lot of people back in 2007 could have predicted that the biggest thing to come from mobile would be an app that let teens remix music videos and share with their friends.

That's funny for me to read almost 15 years after rjdj [0] There is a difference between an idea that is possible, and an idea whose time has come.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RjDj

[destraynor]

Flickr → Instagram (Had FB not bought Insta, it could have been Facebook to Insta too) Plenty of Fish → Tindr