Underestimating How Technology Changes Society

This is the hype cycle for a new technology.

A new technology takes a while to catch on, then has an initial boom. There is a rush of exuberance where many people are making big predictions about the world-changing potential of the technology, hen the hype goes away. Some start to dance on the grave, others keep building, and eventual the technology takes hold and impacts society.

I think that many people underestimate how far this goes on into the future.

Take YouTube for example. It was launched in 2005 and by late 2006 had sold to Google for $1.6 Billion. Also in 2006 Time Magazine named YouTube the person of the year at was at peak hype. By 2008, YouTube was widely known and used. By 2010 everyone knew about the media changing potential of the platform and many creators were making good money on YouTube.

Now that is commonly accepted and YouTube is a teenager, it is much easier to take it for granted. Because we’ve had it so long, it is easier to ignore the slow changes it is having on the world. But the impact of YouTube continues to grow. More and more people from around the world are getting their entertainment there. Popular YouTubers are more popular than big-name movie actors. Young kids making videos at home are reaching more people than mainstream cable TV.

The growth of YouTube around the world and the general shift to consuming content online, instead of on TV, means that more people are joining a global culture. Borders have less of an effect on culture because young people are watching YouTube and Twitch no matter what country they are in.

As YouTube rose to prominence early on in its hype cycle, there was a lot of discussion about how it would disrupt media. But in the slow and more silent growth over the past few years that people are paying less attention too, it is deeply affecting our culture and our communities online.

The popularity of K-Pop or Reggaeton in the US and of American YouTubers around the world are all parts of a new global culture that wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without YouTube.

That is only going to continue. We tend to forget about new technologies after they’ve been around for a decade. The surface level changes have taken place, but the more interesting and deeper impacts on our society are just beginning.