Will the 2020s be better?

[Aidan]

I love technology and am trying to get a job in the field, but I feel it has gone too far. Kinda miss when phones were not listening and Alexa did not exist. Of course, I also miss when the internet was sort of still a foreign land as well.

I see a reverse happening at some point. I think people will get tired of technology after the Zoom year, and I think a stream of things will take place to get us back to a 2010s point in tech. We will probably have a downsizing of Home technology and a return of physical media in some form. As for the internet, I just feel a social media purge is bound to happen. It is clear that most of these sites were incapable of taking on everyone, and I think just a push or two could make them collapse.

I personally think FaceBook will be one of the first to go, outside of Tik Tok. FaceBook has a very old base now, if the Boomers go, then so does half their audience. Tik Tok will likely die out in a similar vein to Vine or Tumblr. Either there will be a replacement or the user base will get so bad no one uses it, something that is getting more present. The real question will be wether Twitter starts to die down or not. I think it and YouTube are safe, but I can see some downsizing in overall usage and appeal.

I think you underestimate these companies. They are global and they profit off of the people using them. They are masters of their craft and pay top dollar to maintain that edge, they won't fall because of how big they are, only because people decide to stop feeding the machine. Facebook, the company, is not just facebook.com now, it's a lot of things and the company is primarily an analytical company.

All of these convenience items have to acquire a negative perception (not cool) to go away, but companies do a very good job of making them cool to have. In the tech world you find the people who hate IoT and avoid it at all costs and the people who try to be bleeding edge so have an entire "smart home" where it's all inter-connected. So even people who you would think know better are deep into that ecosystem sometimes and they've usually just decided being deprived of those conveniences is too tiresome.
Imo we're never going back to 2010s, the internet is going to evolve very differently this decade and I imagine a lot of "fringe" people are going to go further into the corners of the web and federated services will kick off among that crowd because it's very hard to take down.
On that note, I also imagine govts and companies will work very hard to infiltrate and dominate whatever spaces people move to to try to avoid govts and companies.

 

[Syaoran Li]

My household has about 3-4. I hate the thing, but my parents are very big on them for conveniency as they have them play their Spotify playlists or answer questions. I originally got one as a present and wanted to get rid of it, especially because it just became an annoyance as every member of the house wanted to test it, but they got me to keep it.

Honestly, after college, I am probably never to going to have one in my house. It is just creepy and annoying whenever it goes off. I feel like the older generations are more into it though, so maybe I will not be the minority.


I love technology and am trying to get a job in the field, but I feel it has gone too far. Kinda miss when phones were not listening and Alexa did not exist. Of course, I also miss when the internet was sort of still a foreign land as well.

I see a reverse happening at some point. I think people will get tired of technology after the Zoom year, and I think a stream of things will take place to get us back to a 2010s point in tech. We will probably have a downsizing of Home technology and a return of physical media in some form. As for the internet, I just feel a social media purge is bound to happen. It is clear that most of these sites were incapable of taking on everyone, and I think just a push or two could make them collapse.

I personally think FaceBook will be one of the first to go, outside of Tik Tok. FaceBook has a very old base now, if the Boomers go, then so does half their audience. Tik Tok will likely die out in a similar vein to Vine or Tumblr. Either there will be a replacement or the user base will get so bad no one uses it, something that is getting more present. The real question will be wether Twitter starts to die down or not. I think it and YouTube are safe, but I can see some downsizing in overall usage and appeal.

Agreed, although I think Facebook will be the one most likely to stay alongside YouTube. Tik Tok is definitely going to be the first one to go, while Twitter is probably going to collapse in the long run.

I doubt Twitter will completely die out like MySpace or Vine did but I do think it will be like Tumblr or DeviantArt where it still exists and has an active userbase but it's a small userbase and a shell of its former self.

I also can see a return to more physical media as people get increasingly fed up with streaming due to censorship and content exclusivity turning it into Cable 2.0. Physical media like DVD and Blu Ray never really went away like VHS or CD's did even as streaming got more prominent in the late 2010's. Keep in mind that the main reason streaming got so big to begin with is because everyone's gotten fed up with cable. Now it's becoming every bit as bad as cable if you want to be able to actually watch the titles you want.

I'm not sure if Alexa will die out but I also don't think this horrifying late 2010's paradigm will be a fully permanent one like @Aidan thinks. Parts of it are here to stay but I think parts of it are on borrowed time as well.

 

[UnclePhil]

Been thinking about this more, but does anyone else foresee a movement backwards for technology?

When I say this, I am not speaking about stuff like PS6 having PS3 graphics, rather that most online and luxury products will kinda die out. For some reason I see the Streaming bubble bursting and us all going back to DVDs, Movie theaters, and maybe even tv. I think concerns over data collection will drive issues in huge tech companies like FaceBook, minimizing the user base. I can also see streaming having issues with media preservation and ownership rights as Disney is already getting flak for pricing Mulan at $30 when you cannot even own it.

I had this nostalgic hope that we would go back to brick-and-mortar big box stores and malls, Friday nights at the video rental place would return and the streaming bubble would pop (streaming follows the business model of market saturation that caused the housing market, dot com and '83 video game crashes.) Then China Virus destroyed any possibility that a shred of the '90s-'00s would come back.

It's September already, huh? I just want to go home. How much is that asking?

Does anyone really use Alexa/Amazon Echo devices these days? I've only really used it as an alarm clock and nighttime noise player.

I use the thing to tell me what the weather/UV index will be or to play "Mr. Roboto" in here. Yeah, convincing myself that it's mostly harmless and recording over itself every few seconds, also that whole "I'm not committing treason, so what's the harm?" is some doublethink that probably needs to stop.

You ever put your hand over one of those things? It's quite warm.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

Been thinking about this more, but does anyone else foresee a movement backwards for technology?

When I say this, I am not speaking about stuff like PS6 having PS3 graphics, rather that most online and luxury products will kinda die out. For some reason I see the Streaming bubble bursting and us all going back to DVDs, Movie theaters, and maybe even tv. I think concerns over data collection will drive issues in huge tech companies like FaceBook, minimizing the user base. I can also see streaming having issues with media preservation and ownership rights as Disney is already getting flak for pricing Mulan at $30 when you cannot even own it.

Also, I kinda feel like a purge on devices like Alexa is going to be a thing. Thoughts?

I think it'll work itself out, people will just start pirating if they don't have any other choice and then either Disney and the likes will be forced to accept that or start seeing things in the same way as Steam's Gaben when he said piracy is largely a service issue and change their business practices accordingly to give customers value for money.

Spoiler

We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It's the first year and it's already the worst decade of my sad existence. Roaring 20's my fucking ass. Whoever suggested that must have been eating a box of crayons.

 

[-4ZURE-]

Agreed, although I think Facebook will be the one most likely to stay alongside YouTube. Tik Tok is definitely going to be the first one to go, while Twitter is probably going to collapse in the long run.

FaceBook does own Instagram, so it probably does have enough to keep it around.

I doubt Twitter will completely die out like MySpace or Vine did but I do think it will be like Tumblr or DeviantArt where it still exists and has an active userbase but it's a small userbase and a shell of its former self.

I think Twitter will sort of go back to how it was in the earlier years of the 2010s. Still a massive internet hot spot, but the audience is not as big as it is now. Twitter pretty much encompasses the internet at this point, but I think there will be a tiredness of it that will get it to more of the middle ground it used to be in. I think the Wokens will probably get booted by users and same with all the problem starters. It will go back to that site that most people use maybe once a day just to follow the infrequent postings of a celebrity or some community.

In other words, once Trump is gone, I fully expect Twitter to lose many of the “my whole life is Twitter” people. It will die off, but nowhere near Tumblr or MySpace levels.

All of these convenience items have to acquire a negative perception (not cool) to go away, but companies do a very good job of making them cool to have. In the tech world you find the people who hate IoT and avoid it at all costs and the people who try to be bleeding edge so have an entire "smart home" where it's all inter-connected. So even people who you would think know better are deep into that ecosystem sometimes and they've usually just decided being deprived of those conveniences is too tiresome.
Imo we're never going back to 2010s, the internet is going to evolve very differently this decade and I imagine a lot of "fringe" people are going to go further into the corners of the web and federated services will kick off among that crowd because it's very hard to take down.
On that note, I also imagine govts and companies will work very hard to infiltrate and dominate whatever spaces people move to to try to avoid govts and companies.

This is all stuff I do worry about, though I am a bit more hopeful.

We have already seen smaller sites like Twitch rise to relevancy, so it is not as if YouTube is really restricting video streaming sites. Not to mention Tik Tok and Vine.
If sites also lose a lot of the mainstream per se, then it might also be easier to have competition once again, as the audiences will primarily be people who used the internet in the 2000s and earlier 2010s. I think a lot of this really depends on how strong a pushback can be and if people are willing to commit. You are right though, we have created a situation where their are 3 giants with little to nothing to oppose them. It does create a bad situation for the general internet and idea of expansion.

As for smart homes, IDK. If they can sell them correctly, then they will stay. The thing with them is that I feel one or two bad things start coming out and it could collapse the ecosystem. I feel like something will go wrong and lock a person out of general home activities, or mass concerns over being listened to will rise. They really are an experiment at the moment.

I also can see a return to more physical media as people get increasingly fed up with streaming due to censorship and content exclusivity turning it into Cable 2.0. Physical media like DVD and Blu Ray never really went away like VHS or CD's did even as streaming got more prominent in the late 2010's. Keep in mind that the main reason streaming got so big to begin with is because everyone's gotten fed up with cable. Now it's becoming every bit as bad as cable if you want to be able to actually watch the titles you want.

Streaming took off because Netflix was easy and affordable. It was the perfect addition to cable, not replacement. The issue now is that everyone has their own streaming service, which takes away all ease of access and hurts every party. There is no longer the one or two services that have bits of everything, like Netflix and Hulu had. Netflix had Warner, Disney, Viacom, anime, etc.. Now all the companies are splitting and costing around 15-30 bucks a month each. Streaming is no longer easy or affordable if you want all options.

This then hurts every party. If Disney goes a month without big, new content then they will lose money as people will leave. This then puts extreme pressure on content to be done very quickly. Another issue is big budget movies, which will more than likely die off if there are no theaters as there is no way people will pay $30 for these movies as they will just whine to get it on the base service. Now take things like a lack of ads and people pressuring them to release full seasons on launch day, and this whole model seems doomed to fail. The extra cash from ads, dvd sales, and movies/ streaming that they would have gotten with the traditional movie and tv model are going to be gone now. I cannot view streaming as absurdly profitable going forward. People want tons of content for a very small fee.

 

[Syaoran Li]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It's the first year and it's already the worst decade of my sad existence. Roaring 20's my fucking ass. Whoever suggested that must have been eating a box of crayons.

Eh, the first year of a decade is usually more like the trends of the previous decade reaching their peak. 2000 was pretty much a direct continuation of the 90's culturally speaking and the 2000's as we know it now didn't really get going until 9/11.

2010 was a fun-loving party-hardy year by comparison to "the 2010's" as a whole. It wasn't until the rise and fall of Occupy Wall Street in 2011-2012 that things began to trend hyper-political.

It's possible that the 2020's will be a terrible decade. But it's also possible that 2020 is a shitshow of a year but the 2020's as a whole might be okay.

Looking back in this thread, it seems that a lot of predictions were overly optimistic but that's all because nobody foresaw COVID-19. The pandemic was a massive black swan event that threw everyone a huge curveball and a lot of the worst parts of 2020 are either the direct result of the pandemic and its aftereffects or were greatly exacerbated by it. The George Floyd riots probably wouldn't have gotten as bad as they did if it weren't for the months of lockdown that preceded it all.

Even now, some of my predictions still have some merit. I figured 2020 would be the last great year of the Woke Left's dominion and I think I might be right. The George Floyd riots/BLM coup of the past three months has become the Rubicon moment for the Woke Left as a whole and it's now boomeranging on them badly. Even the Democrats are realizing how badly the SJW trend is and how severe their cult beliefs are.

2020 was always going to be a shitshow year rife with politicized drama because of the election even if Corona never happened. Once the election is over and done with and we know the result of it, then we can start making more concrete predictions of how the rest of the 2020's will play out

 

[Michael Jacks0n]

2010 was a fun-loving party-hardy year by comparison to "the 2010's" as a whole. It wasn't until the rise and fall of Occupy Wall Street in 2011-2012 that things began to trend hyper-political.

As I mentioned in an earlier comment about race relations in America, the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case under the Obama administration was without a doubt the Pandora's Box for race relations. In 2009-2011, the worst things we had to deal with were swine flu, the debt ceiling and maybe some expected turmoil in the Gaza Strip, but tensions in the most part were chill with no one really being pissed off over minor shit. As soon as Mulatto Jesus said if he had a son he would look like Trayvon, I swear to fucking god that was the point of no return. I also remember SJW culture starting to rise throughout 2012, with 2013 (pre-GamerGate) being the era in which SJW culture was gaining steam rapidly. I remember in summer 2013 when Zimmerman walked free and there were rumors of riots, and I remember people on Facebook were spinning the whole "Fuck white people!" rhetoric. It all went to full force in 2014 with Mike Brown and the actual start of BLM.

I'd trade 2020 for 2010 for sure: I never thought I'd be nostalgic for an era when I was broke and living at my parents.

Even now, some of my predictions still have some merit. I figured 2020 would be the last great year of the Woke Left's dominion and I think I might be right. The George Floyd riots/BLM coup of the past three months has become the Rubicon moment for the Woke Left as a whole and it's now boomeranging on them badly. Even the Democrats are realizing how badly the SJW trend is and how severe their cult beliefs are.

I'd like to be optimistic about this, but I've only seen things get worse. I've seen sane, normal people go from regular lib to full SJW in a matter of minutes after May 30, 2020, and people are just getting crazier. I've seen otherwise rational and tolerant people unironically advocate for black-on-white violence, and I've seen regular law abiding people on Facebook become anarchists and make posts about rioting and looting. I've seen Boomer Democrats liking and sharing tweets from blue-city/blue-state mayors/governors defending the violence and bashing Trump for wanting to establish law & order. In 2010, I could never even so much as dreamed of seeing ordinary Americans being OK with seeing cities burn and people being randomly attacked, and Democratically-elected politicians condoning it.

As much as I don't want a civil war, I fear things may actually get hot after the 2020 election.

 

[InsolentGaylord]

I'd like to be optimistic about this, but I've only seen things get worse. I've seen sane, normal people go from regular lib to full SJW in a matter of minutes after May 30, 2020, and people are just getting crazier. I've seen otherwise rational and tolerant people unironically advocate for black-on-white violence, and I've seen regular law abiding people on Facebook become anarchists and make posts about rioting and looting. I've seen Boomer Democrats liking and sharing tweets from blue-city/blue-state mayors/governors defending the violence and bashing Trump for wanting to establish law & order. In 2010, I could never even so much as dreamed of seeing ordinary Americans being OK with seeing cities burn and people being randomly attacked, and Democratically-elected politicians condoning it.

As much as I don't want a civil war, I fear things may actually get hot after the 2020 election.

I noticed the moderates turning far Left suddenly as well...my theory on this though is due to social pressure and a fear of being "cancelled" being prominent in their minds. Many did say non publicly they only "supported" the movement to avoid getting blacklisted or whatever.

I will tell you though, I won't particularly trust anyone who is even slightly left wing to be rational nowadays, they seem to flip out on a dime and tbh after these riots, I am no longer sympathetic to any movement like this; I was initially sympathetic when Floyd was originally "killed", before it turned out he died due to a drug overdose once the body cam footage came out. And the attitudes of those supporting the movement and trying to justify burning buildings down and tearing statues and monuments and also spewing such utter nonsense about race, I won't forgive the left anytime soon.

On a side note, my cousin back in the early 2010s was a "proto-SJW". When the London Riots happened (over another jogger getting killed by police) he somewhat made light of the riots despite "not supporting anarchy". He acted very smug and sociopathic after this happened, very similar to the Far left lunatics nowadays who are defending the riots and are oblivious to Cultural Revolution similarities to tearing down monuments. He later on made fun of Steve Jobs when he died, because he thought kids starving in Africa was more important. Typical sign of a bleeding heart faggot.

They seem to have very little actual free will and all sound really angry and whiny. Very pathetic pieces of shit.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

I'd like to be optimistic about this, but I've only seen things get worse. I've seen sane, normal people go from regular lib to full SJW in a matter of minutes after May 30, 2020, and people are just getting crazier. I've seen otherwise rational and tolerant people unironically advocate for black-on-white violence, and I've seen regular law abiding people on Facebook become anarchists and make posts about rioting and looting. I've seen Boomer Democrats liking and sharing tweets from blue-city/blue-state mayors/governors defending the violence and bashing Trump for wanting to establish law & order. In 2010, I could never even so much as dreamed of seeing ordinary Americans being OK with seeing cities burn and people being randomly attacked, and Democratically-elected politicians condoning it.

I see this as a "As long as I'm not personally affected, then I support it/it doesn't affect me!" situation. For as long as the people defending the riots and violence aren't being attacked either emotionally or physically by the rioters, then they'll support the literal extermination of Whitey and his Chink brethren full stop. Once they themselves are either violently beaten up (or left for dead), or their home or business gets destroyed, then they start to turn on the people who caused it. Which does beg the question as to why the rioters haven't attacked a politician's home or mayoral building yet if they're so against law and order. I would love to see a politician who supports the riots eat their words if their homes or offices were wrecked or their families threatened. Bonus points if a rioter decides to try and take the life of the politician too.

 

[NuII's Dad]

There's no way that the 2020s will be better they're going to be worse by one hundred fold. If you think the 2010s were bad it's time to strap yourself in because you haven't seen shit.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I've been really pessimistic lately (thanks 2020), but I think that while things may be getting worse in some ways, there is hope that things could be improving morally overall. For example, slavery, torture, and animal cruelty were once common practices, yet now they're abhorred - at least more than they were before.

 

[DukeOfNimonia]

I stopped using mine awhile ago. I didn't like that thing always listening. It was a very good alarm clock. Nothing gets you out of bed like metal blaring at 7AM.

Try that trick with a German black metal track. You will never sleep again.

 

[UselessIdiot]

There's no way that the 2020s will be better they're going to be worse by one hundred fold. If you think the 2010s were bad it's time to strap yourself in because you haven't seen shit.

I'll wait to see if the general sentiments and politics in the West keep trending conservative/right or keep veering left and towards the social justice nonsense route before I make a decision on how the decade will fare.

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

2020 was always going to be a shitshow year rife with politicized drama because of the election even if Corona never happened. Once the election is over and done with and we know the result of it, then we can start making more concrete predictions of how the rest of the 2020's will play out

I don't see any potential outcome for this election that won't result in massive amounts of violence carrying on into next year and, likely, beyond.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I don't see any potential outcome for this election that won't result in massive amounts of violence carrying on into next year and, likely, beyond.

Give me all the rainbow stickers you want for this, but I honestly do think a Trump win would cause the Woke Left to have a violent temper tantrum and the DNC to fully cut the line since they've already proven to be damn near impossible to control and if the violence continues into 2021, it'll likely be shut down fully since the DNC and their corporate backers won't be needing to run interference for Antifa and BLM if the election is over and done with. This is especially true if Trump can eke out a popular vote win in addition to winning the electoral college.

There's also the fact that BLM and Antifa can also be made into a convenient scapegoat for any Trump victory scenario since the DNC already spent four years throwing shade at Bernie for Hillary's loss in addition to the usual sperging over Russians and internet Nazis. I'd imagine a lot of the Project Veritas leaks about the Bernie campaign in 2020 that have mostly been ignored or even dismissed by the MSM could be repackaged as "new and shocking leaked footage" to help sell that narrative.

If this scenario happens, any Antifa violence in 2021 would be met with extreme reprisals from the Feds and from state agencies wanting to save face after spending the previous summer just being Antifa's bitch.

 

[Bass]

I don't believe the rapture will happen, because it's impossible to know that, and I'm not even a Christian.

I disagree. The rapture did happen. Right when the Mayans said it would in 2012. The part nobody understands is that God only took the Macho Man Randy Savage onto his bosom, as he was the only person on Earth worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The rest of us have to stay in clown world because we are not worthy. So HONK HONK motherfuckers.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

I disagree. The rapture did happen. Right when the Mayans said it would in 2012. The part nobody understands is that God only took the Macho Man Randy Savage onto his bosom, as he was the only person on Earth worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The rest of us have to stay in clown world because we are not worthy. So HONK HONK motherfuckers.

Is that why I keep seeing an influx of doomsday preachers and YouTube nutjobs that are saying the world will end soon by Corona/Asteroids/Jesus/China/Insert other disaster here?

 

[Syaoran Li]

I disagree. The rapture did happen. Right when the Mayans said it would in 2012. The part nobody understands is that God only took the Macho Man Randy Savage onto his bosom, as he was the only person on Earth worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The rest of us have to stay in clown world because we are not worthy. So HONK HONK motherfuckers.

Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter

 

[Pointless Pedant]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It's the first year and it's already the worst decade of my sad existence. Roaring 20's my fucking ass. Whoever suggested that must have been eating a box of crayons.

1920 was a time of massive race rioting, communist unrest, and terrible factory working conditions. The actual "roaring 20s" were not a time anyone would choose to live in, compared to people sitting around on the internet today.