Ten years ago, I predicted 2022. Did I get it right?
Predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but I tried it: talking about phones, lifelogging, and social changes. And on top of that: what do I think’s coming in 2032? ■ Full original talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcPhMqLPuvQ
2012 photo credits:
Andy Davidson, IMG_1790, https://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_d/7906847522/
Andy Davidson, IMG_1791, https://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_d/7906848920/
both licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier: https://amzn.to/3qkj9jP [that’s an affiliate link]
Thanks to Garry, Alex and K for suggesting this video!
I’m at https://tomscott.com
on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott
on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott
and on Instagram as tomscottgo
And yes, to avoid the obvious comments: I have aged in the last ten years. It’ll happen to you, too. And it’s better than the alternative!
You aged???
@Kit Victory I too have that sort of disease and while I don’t wrinkle, my skin has begun to sag. Honestly I would prefer wrinkles
I’m still living in 2012 then, Tom. haha
You’re a monster. Next you’ll be telling santa isn’t real and the government wants to take all my money
You just need some sunshine; a little color in your skin does wonders.
I can’t imagine a world without YouTube, where would I procrastinate all day to avoid my responsibilities??
Maybe youtube is broken up and you have multiple other options in the future.
the chinese manage it
YouTube is kinda digging it’s own grave by changing things that the majority of people don’t want. It’s gonna happen at one point
Dude I’ve been spending time on YouTube for over a decade and a half. I barely remember life before it.
Vimeo
The prediction of short form content taking over long form content reminds me almost exactly how mobile games were “destined” to kill the traditional gaming industry. “Why make a console game if it cost 10x the amount and made 10x less money?” “Everyones going to have a phone, they won’t need a console!” We now know how both can co-exist and continue to grow, but 10 years ago it really felt like it could happen. I think there’s a very good place for both and it’ll still be that way in 10 years.
smart glasses will coexist with smartphones.
Agreed. Short form video is over-hyped: (1) teens will move onto the next big thing when tiktok is mainstream and full of old people, and (2) the market will accommodate both.
flebsys sound of the day
Yea consoles and phones were meant to kill PC gaming but that’s had a resurgence apparently
also wasn’t Vine a thing the kids used?
Well, yes, but also no!
That “prediction” was a very superficial rorschach test; people can claim it supports whatever analysis they make – and they will be at least partially right. Like anything involving consumer and market behavior, it’s not straightforward to answer even with hindsight. In 2011, if you looked back at release cadence of the Elder Scrolls series and tried to ignore mobile, you’d still be able to predict that releases would be longer apart to cope with increasing consumer expectations and competition. You’d also have some evidence that the developer would compensate for this by lengthening the tail of each title with DLC to keep it relevant.
Is that what happened? Before 2011, Bethesda’s premiere Game Studios exclusively developed PC and console games on a traditional development cycle. Now their development credits include mobile games (like Fallout Shelter and TES: Blades). Todd Howard & Co. haven’t released a new mainline Elder Scrolls in over a decade; the next major entry is still likely years away at best. Skyrim re-releases and compilations seem to fit the bill alongside the MMO TES: Online. Successful franchises aren’t being sent off to new developers for special treatment, let alone “cash-in” titles like one might have expected in the past to support consumer demands. Instead it appears they’re trying to stretch their studio to cover at least three major franchises now that “TES in space” has been announced. This may not be exclusively caused by mobile gaming, but it illustrates the pressures on a modern games studio.
One of the major competitors to the Elder Scrolls series on all platforms is Genshin Impact, a free-roaming MMO available on every platform you can find current Elder Scrolls content on, aside from the Xbox and Motorola pagers. It’s made over $2Bn which is right in Skyrim territory in a short time. I know this is cherry picking, but from one example, mobile gaming isn’t so much “coexisting” with traditional gaming as much as fundamentally altering its market. Players still expect traditional console and PC-style polished content, but now they also tend to expect gacha features and quarterly content release cycles. It’s proven difficult to scale with demand, I think, even with the rapid rise of professional games development in mainland China and elsewhere.
IMO, a better way to pose these questions is to start with individual trends and ask “what kind of opportunities, costs, and risks drive industry; and how will answers from mobile gaming impact traditional gaming?”
I can see a future where podcasts, longform content and TikTok/YouTube Shorts-like snippets of such content become fused in some sort of combined media platform. Right now YouTube is easily the most versatile. We can get music, movie clips, shows, podcasts and gameplay streams all in one place, but they may not stay on top forever.
I think you got that right. But hey, 10 years from now is a long time.
How many subscribers can I get from this reply
Current 89
I can go from a 30 second clip to a 10 minute video to a 1 and half hour stream or podcast and its great
So sad. 🙁 I don’t like shorts because they’re too… short.
@Arty neat
Gonna put my prediction in now: short form content will take over not by “killing” long-form, but by further cementing itself as the start of the path to internet relevance.
Rather than youtube being the place to “get found” online, new internet celebrities will be primarily minted on short-form services, and will then use that influence to launch themselves elsewhere.
Youtube becomes netflix for indie content.
That’s essentially what we saw with Vine
The YouTube commenters in 10 years will quietly judge you
@MajkaSrajka i think so, many tiktok people move/add youtube after they get bigger and have more influence so yep this is already happening.
No lmao
Vine foreshadowed short form as the way to start???
2012: “The descendant of Siri will have advanced abilities”
Actual 2022: “Hey Siri, call my dad”
“Ok, showing google results for Call of Duty”
This has 3 really funny meanings
“Hey Siri, call me daddy”
“I don’t see a father in your contacts”
@Pacíficounus annus
@Pacífico that make sense tho because Irish english speakers say me instead of my alot of times
@The Recluse The funny thing is they actually said “us” so it makes less sense
If only Tom could’ve predicted just how some people could’ve reacted to the rollout of 5G…
People reacted kinda the same for 4g
@Nonno d’acciaio yup, 3G too. The only thing that makes the 5G reaction seem worse is that social media gives these people a wider platform and amplifies their ranting, but they were always out there.
@delinear Not to mention 5g rolled out during some uh… Turbulent times.
@delinear come on now, it’s not entirely white either. 5G has smaller effect area so it needs more base stations. And those are not exactly completely harmless.
Who would have guessed that 5G would cause respiratory illness that quickly grew into a worldwide pandemic!? /s
I’m glad you posted this. Just the other day I was thinking how the 2010s don’t feel too different from the 2020s (so far) but this proves otherwise. I’m still dumbfounded by the choice to remove earphone Jack’s on phones
Insane
@Kyle Dolan Complete heresy
Well, Technology advances so much. Still feels currently like late 2010s. It’s only when in a few years time you can tell there was a difference
It’s a really great thing as long as your headphones are wireless
Moral of the story: Tom is much better at predicting the past and present, and being thrown through windows, than predicting the future.
How many subs can I get from this
Current 89
@Not Cason none
That’s too scary to think about for me as a channel owner with more than 2000 videos on it. And if it does happen, I really really hope that the videos on this platform will still be archived somewhere.
Please keep personal backups. Google has a history of killing its products and YouTube has not been making as much money as they want for years now.
@Susan Tummon Google is becomong old of age because of their policy and actions.
Save your backups now, don’t count on google being reasonable about it.