> In Asia its like 1998

I can't speak such a broad generalization, but I noticed a learning curve/ trajectory of how people perceive opportunity online and the ideas they get excited about. It seems to depend when someone truly dove into internet and used it for everyday needs.

I only have anecdotal evidence to this, but I really think that most follow are following the same trajectory/learning curve about opportunity online and people are currently in place across that curve. We still have fewer than half the world online, and billions who are using the internet today the way we used it in 1994.

This is my theory for why old school domainers stopped buying domain names for a premium in 2007, and yet there are still people today paying a ridiculous amount of money for domain names, and thousands more investing in them like it's still a gold rush. That gravy train seemed to dry up in the last decade, yet somehow new people enter the market and fall in love. I bet there are still penny auctions making money and daily deal sites emerging, despite those trends passing years and years ago.

Those on the cutting edge need to remember that they don't reflect the bulk of the world, there is lagging opportunity for at least a decade in every space that seems to be owned.

I registered a domain last week directly from the registrar for $200 a year, which Is a lot for me. I know it is probably at least worth $1000 right now so I could get what I paid out of it at least. The point I am trying to make is that things adopt their real value, domains for an analogy are like real estate.

SF/SV/NYC/LON are very desirable areas and it takes a long time to build out that infrastructure. It is a supply/demand mismatch. Domains were these nebulous things no one understood but if you bought one, it was worth way more than you paid for it. However, JET.com and Genius.com were quite expensive because they are pretty desirable domains, nerdy.com just went for 25K. Supply has gone up so the localpetstores.co.com domains aren'rt really worth anything.

On balance, technology companies-- companies that are leveraging technology well and constantly improve as part of their business, will continue to do well. However, if you define technology as, with a computer then that sector is as descriptive as American or European. Companies in leveraging technology well:

Alphabet

Apple

FB (oculus)

Amazon

Intel

Companies often referred to as "technology companies"

IBM

Twitter

LinkedIn

GE

If you look at the highlevel descriptors, both baskets are fairly comparable, and that is the trap!.

Amazon has a globally unified distribution for digital media, technology applications, physical things, and a marketplace.

Alphabet.

Facebook has 1Billion users and owns much of the messaging. It is how people organize social search. They also are able to marry the phone messaging and image/moments, with the online community of the computer and soon bridge the devide to gaming and a truly addictive world of VR.

Intel is the world leader in building the thing every one of those companies runs on.

etc.

The mismatch between value and perceived value is becoming more evident. So it is, to quote our guy Charlie D, both the best of times and rthe worst of times, some have much infront of them and some have nothing, and the pundits will insist that it is a superlative of this or that, when in reality it is sameness: think hard, be more correct and capitalize on your view of the future.

edit: just to clarify, I plan on using the domain lest anyone think I am a squatter. Although, I do have a tendency to get sidetracked/change gears so I was using that as an analogy above.

> I know it is probably at least worth $1000 right now

Based on the sale price from last week, it's worth about $200 right now.

while this is regarding the domain, and also a cheeky comment, consider that broadly:

* there is friction in the market

* information is distributed asymmetrically

* improvements can be made quickly with technology

* value is different for each actor, synergy could provide a more compelling case for an action

* people still make money of arbitrage

* people will pay not to wait, e.g. registration and ownership of an asset in a foreign country has a 1-2 month lag.

etc.

> I registered a domain last week directly from the registrar for $200 a year, which Is a lot for me. I know it is probably at least worth $1000

This is a perfect example of the trajectory I was referring to. Back in 2006 I believed I could register a name from a registrar and turn around and sell it for $1000. I even knew the economics of domaining. All the monetization strategies, sales tactics, valuation models, and based my belief on comparable sales, etc... (in other words, there was real value independent of two buyers competing for it.)

Yet, now I believe it is tantamount to a scam. Intrinsically, there is no value in a domain name that you can register today. The value is a complete fiction. Sure, there are tons of suckers today buying names they shouldn't, taken in by the shining lights, but this is my point. The domain names that have intrinsic value are long gone and have been for over a decade. (i.e 2 & 3 character, dictionary words, short pronounceable & brandable, names, places, etc...)

The only value in domain names today is if two people both desperately want the name. Too often it is the ego of someone who falls in love with a name they thought of for their brand and can't untangle their ego from reality and end up buying a name that they didn't need.

In a few years, their knowledge will catch up with mine today and they will perceive the opportunity the way I do. The same way in a few years I will have the experience to view things in a new light. I have to remind myself that someone exposed to domaining in the last 5 years doesn't have the benefit of learning what I learned over the last decade.

> domains for an analogy are like real estate.

I used to share this belief, but now I believe it is built on a fundamental misunderstanding.

Fundamentally, the only thing that would give a name value like real estate is if its easier to spell or remember. I.e. more accessible than another name. There really is no intrinsic difference between genius.com or smartbloke.com or owlsmarts.com All are short, easy to spell, easy to remember, easy to tell over to friends, and conjure up the same general idea. Yet, domain sellers will have you believe that genius.com is worth 10x-100x the value of the others. This is a pure fabrication.

Real estate and location have very real dynamics like accessibility, visibility, local demographics, parking, passing traffic, etc...

In the old days, a domain name with type in traffic would trade for 4-6 years revenue from parked traffic. That was comparable to real estate.

My point is simply that I can't understand how someone buys a great generic domain name for 5-6 figures like nerdy.com, when they can accomplish 95% of the same thing with any two dictionary words like, " nerdybird.com or nerdyduckling.com , etc...

I agree with you for the most part and it is possible-- quite likely even, that I am saying my example is the exception to the rule, but generally it is not the case. However, I am not domain squatting and the economnics aren't there to do that anyway, it was to illustrate the larger point that some domains, like real estate assets and "tech" companies are very valuable while apparently similar substitutes are not value and actually quite dangerous.

Currently, subtle differences make a big impact on metrics(growth, value, price) & the market is beginning to price these in. If you have seen the big short, it is a great movie, but the opening line is something like:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

So try to check myself when I think about something like this, although it is obviously difficult. In this current framing, certainly one or both of us, is wrong and it is sort of a matter of timing.

I think we are in 1993 and you think(I don't want to put words in your mouth) are in 98'. Either way, if you were in 93 or 98 and knew what to look for you could have made a lot of money, and you yourself may have because you were fundamentally correct when others weren't.

So on balance, I think you are totally correct and I do not disagree with you. However, my estimation is that many people are making the mistake of grouping unrelated things together and drawin g a conclusion, when I think that in fact, the opposite could be true currently.

Fair enough.

"the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning"

This sounds like pure denial. You don't want to face a painful truth, so you create a rationalization. But your sentence could be applied to dozens of other maturing industries, and your sentence would be wrong in every case:

In the 1880s: "There are thousands of oil reserves that no one has discovered yet, therefore the field remains wide open to innovators who want to take a risk on a new field."

And yet, after 1880s, the industry consolidated into a single behemoth. Even as late as the early 21st century, wildcatters could still make some money off a hard to reach patch, if prices were high enough. That didn't change the fact that all the big profits were held by a few near monopoly powers.

In the 1880s: "Much of the country can not yet be reached by train, so this industry is wide open to innovators who want to build new lines."

And yet the train industry consolidated after 1880.

1920s: "In automobiles, there are still vast innovations to be made to make brakes reliable, and someone needs to invent an automatic starter, since hand crakes are now dangerous, given the growing size of the engines. And an automatic transmission would be an amazing breakthrough, if anyone can figure out how to do it. The space is wide open for innovators who can solve any of the many problems that remain in the auto industry."

But the auto industry consolidated from that point forward.

In the 1980s: "The CPU is a new idea and the path forward for processors is still wide open to innovation."

And yet, Motorola was founded in 1928, Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957, Intel in 1968 and AMD was founded in 1969. The dominant powers for computer processors started a long time ago, the field consolidated when much was still unknown about the ideal strategy for processors.

There are industries that clearly have not yet emerged as stable entities with a clear path forward. Genetic engineering is an obvious one. But the software industry is clearly much more consolidated than it was in the past.

The train, the automobile, and the microprocessor were all harbingers of exponentially increasing wealth and opportunity. Each technology lowered the cost of starting and running businesses, as well as giant ancillary businesses and markets.

The microprocessor preceded the gold rush we're eulogizing here.

They all spawned brand new ecosystems that created entirely new opportunities for entrepreneurs to create wealth. The train even unified some nation states that didn't exist.

It's possible that you did not understand the original article. Or perhaps you did not read it. When you write:

"Each technology lowered the cost of starting and running businesses"

No, not in those industries. When an industry consolidates, the cost of the starting a new business in that industry skyrockets. Eventually it becomes impossible to start a new company in that industry. That clearly happened for trains and automobiles, microprocessors, and certainly now for Internet companies.

This is a pat re-statement of a tired cliche:

"They all spawned brand new ecosystems that created entirely new opportunities for entrepreneurs to create wealth."

There will probably be economic growth in the future. I mentioned one obvious industry that is still forming: genetic engineering. That doesn't change the fact that the gold rush has come to an end for Internet startups.

Here you are changing the subject:

"The train even unified some nation states that didn't exist."

I come back to my original diagnosis: Your comment sounds like pure denial. You don't want to face a painful truth, so you create a rationalization.

Pretty sure this is troll feeding but in case you're sincere:

I didn't say cost was lowered in the "train" industry. Cost was lowered in the milk industry. Because after the train people didn't have to keep cows in urban areas to have fresh milk.

Your diagnosis is wrong. I've spent the last year focused on internet connected hardware, immersing myself in all the amazingly powerful new tools that just got cheap and open source.

The things I've made, the possibilities, the wonder of designing something on a screen and having it manifest itself in the world, so you can hold it and it comes alive right in front of you. The next evolution of internet techology is going to be so much better than CRUD apps ever were.

Adopt a broader view of internet startups friend and you will see the internet is just the communication/coordination channel for our cybernetic future.

> the gold rush has come to an end for Internet startups

I can see the arguments for that but on the other hand the internet unicorns are popping up like never before. Maybe they are overhyped but Slack etc are doing ok. I'm not sure things are dramatically different in 2016 compared to 2013 when they launched for example.

So you don't think the age of AI is just beginning? It seems to be to me, at least from the point of view of making money. We've got walking robots and self driving cars in development but not selling significantly yet. That will change. I daresay it could just get dominated by Google but there are probably opportunities for startups.

I think you are on to something. this post was on HN a few weeks ago about how deep learning is no longer interesting because it has become routine. My first thought when I read that was "deep learning just became interesting because now it's stable enough to build a business around". The end of one cycle is just the beginning of another one. Find out what that new cycle is, hop on, and strap in.

http://www.inference.vc/deep-learning-is-easy/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11006067

>> And the same process that created cheap and easy tools for software, the same process that dropped the cost of starting a SaaS business 10x will happen for robotics/ai/IoT.

So OK, we've got tools for the IOT(mbed/arduino, etc). The key question is - how do you protect your product from being rapidly copied by big competitors(or worse, china),when they are using those same tools ?

In web development, we did it by getting tons of users really really fast and using that as a tool. But hardware markets are much slower.

That leaves us having unique, well protect IP(if you want a unicorn). And maybe this can be created by a startups, but a totally different type of startup: Maybe based on long university research. Maybe based of on a group of exceptional multi-disciplinary people with unique skills working together - and not a bunch of kids with an idea.

I think the key to network monopolies there is going to be iot device + backend. The backend/network is where the lock in/value will come from.

I don't understand, could you please expand?

It's about iTunes, not the iPod.

It's about the app store, not the iPhone.

It's about the phone contract, not the phone hardware.

It's about the K-cups, not the Kurig.

It's about the cable subscription (and the ads), not the set top box.

It's a pretty simple idea actually --- tie your IoT device to a backend service and never worry about competitors stealing your UI/design.

Case in point: the Nest Dropcam uses backend services to do image detection and alerting, two things which require skills hardware manufacturers often don't have.

Heres one idea for such a business. Design and build some type of intelligent, networked sensor that gathers X valuable data.

Find a way to get enough devices installed in the right places by the right people, or better yet take to seas.

Sell your sensor network data, which is analyzed with some type of machine intelligence to make it more valuable.

The ocean is a rich place to find such data.

Low power computing + motors + wires + rapidly prototyped printed, or machined or laser cut parts + low cost sensors + web backends + newly accessible ai libraries = infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

We won't run out of startups like that until we're living on a fully networked intelligent planet.

> I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998.

Seems very ironic, if you remember that time in Asia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis)

I'm in Vietnam and it's booming but more in real estate and manufacturing rather than internet. The Uber of Vietnam will be ... Uber.

I think there will be a dip at the very least in the upcoming months, but yes, longterm we'll have another boom and it will presumably involve IoT, AI, VR, AR, ect.

> You can't get rich making a site like reddit today.

Why not? Reddit is old...

As my old man used to say: "if you don't like this game, play another one. There's plenty out there."