It’s interesting to read Paul Graham’s Web 2.0 ten years later. Some thoughts:

  • The websites Paul most praises—Google, Wikipedia, Reddit—are stronger than ever in 2016.
  • I’ve noticed for a while that the stuff I read on individual people’s sites is as good as or better than the stuff I read in newspapers and magazines. And now I have independent evidence: the top links on Reddit are generally links to individual people’s sites rather than to magazine articles or news stories.

    • This is no longer the case. ☹️ Today’s top stories on Reddit include no individual people’s sites.
  • Craigslist has largely destroyed the classified ad sites of the 90s, and OkCupid looks likely to do the same to the previous generation of dating sites.

    • OkCupid is still one of the most popular.
  • I wouldn’t be surprised if ten years from now eBay had been supplanted by an ad-supported freeBay (or, more likely, gBay).

    • Nope. eBay has fewer and fewer auctions, and more and more people just sell directly, some on eBay and some on competitors like Amazon.
  • The ultimate target is Microsoft. What a bang that balloon is going to make when someone pops it by offering a free web-based alternative to MS Office. Who will? Google? They seem to be taking their time. I suspect the pin will be wielded by a couple of 20 year old hackers who are too naïve to be intimidated by the idea. (How hard can it be?)

    • Google, of course, did come out with the free web-based Google Docs, but Microsoft and their web-based Office 365 are doing fine.