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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there isn't a clear profit incentive to do it; my impression that the tech is clunky and dumb is probably 5-10 years out of date given all the improvements since; I also haven't identified a clear personal use case, but since I've never used it, I may well be missing out.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.
Here are some good use cases that I've found for mine.
When I'm busy cooking, it's really clutch to be able to say "Alexa, set timer for x minutes" while I keep working on my cooking.
Similarly to the above, when I'm planning a shopping trip it is useful to be able to verbally add things to my shopping list as I go through the kitchen identifying what things I need. And when I'm at the store, I can use the app on my phone to pull up the things I need.
Simplifying things for my wife on occasion. She is terrible at remembering the details of how our AV receiver is hooked up, and she used to always ask me "hey which input is X on?". But now (with the assistance of a Harmony hub to be fair), she can go "Alexa, turn on the PS4" and all the devices get turned on and to the correct inputs.
Triggering home automation routines. For example, when I say "Alexa, good night" I have a routine which turns off every room light, turns the TV and related devices off, locks the front door, and turns the hall lights to a dim nightlight setting. Sure I could do a button to kick off the routine, but it's a lot nicer to be able to issue voice commands and not have to have a physical thing to trigger for each routine I want to setup.
Overall, I would say that it is legitimately useful to have in our household. Granted I'm looking to jump ship, but that's because Amazon has been adding user hostile behavior and not because the core use cases aren't good for me. I would say that voice assistants are kind of like In-N-Out Burger: ridiculously overhyped by the hardcore fans, but still legitimately good as long as you don't let those hardcore fans set your expectations too high.
the "good night moon, good night amazon® co ltd." thing is where it starts to look risky to me, especially if kids learn from it. Feels much safer to be able to say "computer: engage evening mode" in the famous "earl gray, hot" voice of command.
Once you start exchanging pleasantries with the abominable intelligence, it's all over. I know an old widow who started to chat with her Alexa thing during lockdowns, and building that sort of exploitable customer "relationship" with vulnerable lonely people is what some Amazon marketing ghoul drools over.
This is my issue as well. I want them to respond with an R2-D2 beep, not a "sure! One sec, let me find that for you! :) "
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