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What consensus*-defying beliefs did you hold that turned out to be right, and what consensus-defying predictions would you care to make now?
*in the most loosely defined sense--I just mean something that seems to go against the general public mood, not something you alone out of 8 billion people had a unique insight over.
Over the past few weeks, /r/technology has voted to the top numerous threads outlining deep-rooted issues with Amazon, from its trillion dollar market cap contraction, 11k layoffs, workers strikes and union-busting, and more recently, its Alexa division that's supposed to lose $10b this year.
Regarding the last headline specifically, I'm no superforecaster, but I've always avoided voice assistants and found the rest of the world's apparent eager adoption strange. I think my avoidance is potentially irrational: I generally distrust always-on-mics, but there is massive legal and reputational risk for any large tech firm to spy without court orders and there isn't a clear profit incentive to do it; my impression that the tech is clunky and dumb is probably 5-10 years out of date given all the improvements since; I also haven't identified a clear personal use case, but since I've never used it, I may well be missing out.
Now, there are plenty of goods and services that I don't consume that offer real utility to many other people. But I'd always thought voice assistants overhyped because I couldn't relate to just how much utility they were able to provide the average consumer and how profitable they are to their makers, considering how prevalent they are--new phones goading you into turning them on, perennial sales on voice gadgets, the cultural relevance of Alexas/Siris/Google Assistants/Cortanas/Bixbys etc. Like, I find the similarly free Maps app to be 100x more useful, and yet no one tries to shove Maps down your throat, maybe because they don't need to do it considering how useful it is. And so, while I don't share the fairly obvious undercurrent of anti-Amazon schadenfreude on /r/technology, the news that Alexa is actually failing badly and has always failed badly as a business investment comports with my preferences, and that's reassuring.
I recognize it's super hard to actually predict the future with real stakes (say, a financial investment), or else we'd all be billionaires. And left ignored are the many more incorrect forecasts that I/we don't write/talk about. Still, it's fun to casually celebrate moral wins, and I think useful to constantly tinker with your mental models based on new data points, especially when it relates to things that you strongly disagree with the rest of the world on. So what examples can you think of?
P.S. A couple more random and completely inconsequential things that I turned out to be right about:
About a year before COVID, someone very senior at work pointed to Peloton as an example of an exceptional business model, saying that it was able to earn a huge premium thanks to the self-actualization provided by in-store sales reps who supposedly had sophisticated scripts that effectively bucketed leads based on demographics data etc. that resulted in outsized closing rates. I was skeptical, but its valuation kept on skyrocketing so decided to believe it. It now seems my skepticism was warranted.
I've always held a grudge against Grubhub since back when it was the dominant market share leader in food deliveries circa 5-7 years ago. Can't remember the exact reasons why, but it was probably a combination of what I felt to be dishonest or dark pattern UI/UX for its end users, stuff like defaulting to outrageous tipping % to trick/shame users, or applying that tipping % to the grand total instead of before taxes and fees, or a sanctimonious interview given by its CEO. I'd always thought its dominance was unsustainable because of these red flags, and did enjoy a healthy dose of anti-Grubhub schadenfreude as its valuation cratered and market share dwindled.
And a couple of consensus-defying (again, very loosely defined) predictions:
Asians in the US will go reliably majority conservative by the 2030 midterms (okay, it's not a crazy claim, but most pundits focus on Hispanics and Blacks shifting away from Dems, and largely ignore Asians; also, I've thought Asians were overdue to vote GOP for probably a decade now, which probably actually means my prediction has been very poor considering this hasn't materialized yet).
Blended salads will go mainstream by 2050--that is, people will blend up what is very obviously originally a salad based on the ingredients (and so different from today's veggie smoothies) and drink it for efficiency's sake.
The tech-horny have been pushing voice controls as the technology of the future for decades now, but the public has been slow to catch on. I think it's largely because there's something inherently weird about talking aloud when there's nobody else around. Either way, the Alexa was sold as a voice-activated solution to various problems that no one has (telling it you need to order more laundry detergent, really? Who orders laundry detergent anyway?), but the reason I think it caught on is because it was convenient as a music player. Alexa came out around the time that people were switching to streaming services en-masse and switching from laptops to phones en-masse. The problem was that at the time there weren't a lot of wireless options to allow you to connect your phone to a speaker; most people were only familiar with boom boxes and the like that used aux cables, which meant your phone was tethered to the stereo. The Echo came out around the same time as other bluetooth speakers and was able to advertise a lot of these fringe Alexa services to go along with it. So in a brand new marketplace with a bunch of untested options, the Echo comes out ahead to a lot of people because it seems to have the most features. The problem is that once everyone bought an Echo they quickly came to realize that they only really used it as a music player, so when they wanted to upgrade they looked not to the new Echo models but to whatever bluetooth speakers Wirecutter or whoever was touting as the best at actually playing music. And without the Echo, Alexa's pretty much useless since every phone has an equivalent voice assistant feature.
As for Peleton, I predicted that as well, though I admittedly haven't been paying much attention to their downfall. First, it's a "smart bike" that's more expensive than a regular exercise bike. Second, half the appeal is being able to pay for a subscription that costs between 12 and 44 (!) dollars per month to stream spin classes. Exercise bikes are pretty readily available for not a lot of money, but let's be honest, they weren't peddling the thing as just another exercise bike. The app subscription is where the real money was at. The problem was that the material available on the app appears to be no different than similar stuff you can get for free on Youtube. If they had made it an interactive cycling experience similar to Zwift then maybe they'd have something, but that would actually cost money to implement. The problem is that, even if the app was an essential part, it's in the nature of exercise equipment that most of the owners don't use it nearly as much as they intend to. Then people start cancelling subscriptions and the next big exercise trend is upon us so sales of new machines start to slacken and befor you know it your stock price is 1/10th what it was at its peak.
I doubt Asians will be reliably conservative on that timeframe. Asians tend to be more educated and more urbanized than blacks or Hispanics, and in recent years the educated, urbanized vote as a whole has been trending less conservative, not more. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any broad reason for Asians as a group to switch political allegiance. Affirmative action is probably the most obvious reason, but I'd wager that half of all Asians in the US live in states where the practice is already illegal, and it may be illegal everywhere less than a year from now. Even if it's allowed, it's really only an issue that affects a relatively small number of people. Most Asians aren't having problems getting into their preferred schools because there isn't a shortage of good schools, or even a shortage of excellent schools. There's a shortage of elite schools, but most people, Asian or otherwise, aren't getting anywhere near an elite school regardless of what their affirmative action policy is. And I haven't heard of any kind of ripple effect that goes all the way down, or even that it's prevalent at all elite schools. Overall, I just don't think it's enough of a concern that someone is going to shift their entire political ethos over it.
I'm the opposite. I love voice assisted stuff, but hate doing it when other people are around.
As for Asians becoming reliably conservative, I think it'll be more that Democrats leave them behind. Asians tend to have more traditional views around family, marriage, sex, education, work, etc. When it comes to urban living, they want safe streets, low-crime, not to be stepping over drug addicts. The successful pushback against progressive policies seems to come from Asians.
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