Tech Hype-Busting Through Lindy Effect

Working in tech means that you are inevitably will get caught up in hype. Enormous VC funds distorts the market further by sustaining the hype even longer than it normally should.

I recently moved all my Medium post to this Ghost installation. At one time, Medium is touted to be the savior of blog and long form content. It combines the familiar blogging format and discoverability of social media. However, Medium later changed for the worse for no clear objective.

I was caught up in the Medium hype, at one time we even considering to move The Dredger TV blog to Medium. Thankfully we didn’t.

Mainstream blogging platform had been around since 15 years ago, so it should last at least another 15 years.

Medium on the other hand had only been around for 5 years, so the best estimate is only another 5 years.

I also observed similar trend in eCommerce. Many online sellers are now moving to giant marketplace such as Amazon, Shopee and Lazada. They can get more customers on these massive platform.

Amazon had started to go wrong for many sellers. They find themselves kicked out, banned, or sabotaged by other traders. Expect to see the same story play out on Lazada & Shopee soon as they want to extract more profit.

Of course Amazon had been around for 20 years, and can possibly survive another 20 years.

But don’t forget standalone eCommerce site is even older than that. At the very least it had been around for 25 years (a quarter century!). It can easily outlast Amazon. It’s even more stark if compared with Lazada & Shopee that had been around for less than 5 years.

You might not pull as much sales as on Amazon but you do have a bit more security of your business. The tools to create your own eCommerce website is now cheaper and easier than ever before.

Please have your own place on the internet. Your career and business survival might depend on it.