@pluralistic

Well I sure hope Cory is right about this. The argument makes sense and I also feel there is a big market correction coming. I still feel the pain the late 90s tech bubble bursting.😱

So this then begs the question: My 19 YO kid is about to set up his first investment savings account. Would it be wise at this time to stay away from market based funds or given his age throw caution to the wind?

@pluralistic : my take on this is that those datacenters consume lot of electricity. Most of it renewable. Which means that, after the bubble, we will drown in too-cheap-to-meter electricity.

In fact, electricity will often have a negative price. Which will put bitcoin mining into a new light.

(while the crypto market is a scam and current prices are scam, the bitcoin project, at its core, is not a scam at all and is truly important. But I agree that the core is well hidden those days)

@pluralistic

There is now a whole ecosystem of AI apps and also many long-standing apps with added AI features, most relying on a single closed model provider hidden in the backend. Sure many are just silly marginal AI features but a few do useful things.

I wonder if those apps devs are even aware of the risk of wild API price hikes, or full loss of the provider or model.

Now Windows OS itself is becoming tied with AI too.

Taking that all into account, its pretty dire if they do collapse.

@pluralistic Bubbles are bad but it really is astounding how little will be left after the bubble bursts and how much resources are essentially being put into something that cannot be salvaged for anything else is astounding.

I still ride on the tracks built during the British railway mania of the 19th century over here and the initial investment of people installing fibre clearly were proven correct given how much fibre there is installed now. Such a colossal waste of silicon happening now.

@pluralistic This reminds me of the song from Portal.

"So I'm glad I got burned, think of all the things we learned
For the people who are still alive"

#portal

@pluralistic just makes me wonder. After the tulip mania of 1637.

What happened to the tulips?

I'm on a tour with my new book *Enshittification*!

Catch me next in #LosAngeles, #Calgary and #SanFrancisco!

Full schedule with dates and links at:

https://pluralistic.net/tour

2/