Why Is Technology Not Exciting Anymore?
I still remember the first computer I owned. It was a Commodore VIC 20 with a cassette tape drive and a little engine that could. It was so simple, but high tech at the same time. You couldn’t just pop in a tape and start playing a game. You had to put in a command to ask it politely to load the game and then it would let you play. Classic games like Pharoah’s Tomb, Pike’s Peak, and more; amazing graphic wonders that would dazzle and excite. Heck, text based adventures were fun and challenging and really inspired imagination. It was full of potential. You could feel being part of something revolutionary.
Each generation brought the promise of something new. Modems allowed for connections with friends over distances. Rudimentary message boards allowed you to leave messages and you would wait until next day to see a response. Games started getting more colors to use, better animations, cool sound effects and sound tracks. I remember downloading a 3 second clip of “Kung Fu Fighting” and being amazed how good it sounded after only an hour of downloading. Disk drives replaced tape drives. CD replaced disks. DVD replaced CD. Blu-ray replaced DVD. Each step a promise of something better, something never seen before. And you looked forward to what they were going to come up with next!
So what happened? Where did the thrill go? Back in the 2000’s a new cell phone being released was a big deal. Line ups were common (especially when Apple came to town). There was innovation after innovation. I remember when a camera or an internet connection was an accessory you attached to your phone to add that feature. Now it’s all built in! Digital camera, music player, movie maker, internet browser, email reader, daily planner, you name it. Each generation getting faster. But when did the party end?
Look at the latest launch of the Samsung S25 devices. Unless you specifically tell someone you have the S25, no one can tell it from the S24 line. Better camera, slightly. Specs say its better, but barely decernable for the average user. And the big innovation is AI, which is half-baked at best and thrown-in to help make a value proposition. But if you choose not to use AI, what do you have? Last years model. Nothing exciting. We’ve reached the point where we’ve run out of problems for the technology to solve. That’s what made it exciting from generation to generation. What were they going to do that wasn’t possible before? The joy of discovery is missing. I even switched from Samsung to a Google Pixel just to try and find something different.
Some say that losing competition has drastically reduced innovation. There’s some merit to that. At one time there were several companies putting out product, trying to out do each other. Nokia crashed and burned, Blackberry got squished. HTC went AWOL. LG couldn’t compete. It left us in North America with Apple, the juggernaut and Samsung, the Android competitor. But that’s where things get comfortable. Apple has an entire system in place to make switching from it amazingly difficult. And Android is getting bogged down in monetization that threatens security. The Google Pixel was something that used to be interesting. A “pure” Google phone to rival the iPhone. However, if you aren’t looking close enough, you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. Especially from the front. Our eyes are also only capable of seeing so much detail that higher resolution screens and cameras are often indistinquishable.
This becomes an interesting point in the human condition. The closer we get to perfection, the further we get away from interest. The more problems get solved, the more we look for new problems to solve. The more comfortable we get, the more we seek out something to challenge us. We are not really all that good with reaching the end of anything. But maybe that’s the best part of this whole thing. If technology doesn’t excite you anymore, find something that does. Look for a problem you find exciting and try and be part of the solution.
So what do you think? Is technology getting stale or are you still looking forward to some new innovation? What excites you? Leave a comment and enjoy your day!
