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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there isn't a clear profit incentive to do it; my impression that the tech is clunky and dumb is probably 5-10 years out of date given all the improvements since; I also haven't identified a clear personal use case, but since I've never used it, I may well be missing out.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.
I think I was one of the first people to say that being outside was probably not only safe but one of the best places to be during the pandemic. I was also one of the first to argue that the lockdowns and masks would likely go on for a lot longer than most people realized. I also predicted the reversal of most remote work.
Current consensus defying beliefs:
current efforts to fight climate change are causing more harm than good. (75%)
congestion pricing is very good (99.5%)
there might not be a recession within the next year (50%)
Could you expand on this? Curious as to what exactly you mean by this
Not OP, but I believe the same thing, more or less, so I'll give it a shot.
"Renewable" energy is likely not a good long-term solution to our energy needs. It is very poor at providing stable base load power. At one point yesterday, something like 45% of Germany's power was generated by coal. Contributions from wind and solar were essentially zero. The very expensive renewable infrastructure built throughout Europe is only utilized to a small percentage of its capacity. Meanwhile, nuclear plants are being retired. We are treated to absurdities such as France being fined for not reaching its renewable goals despite having by far the lowest carbon intensity of any major European country. Or forests being felled in the United States to import "renewable" wood pellets for power generation in Europe.
A renewable power transition will require vast amounts of copper, lithium, and other base metals. It is very unclear where these metals will come from. As batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels age they will require disposal and replacement, meaning that this is not a one time cost either.
Various sources of power have different returns on investment. For something like natural gas, you might get 100x the energy from burning it than you need to acquire it. For solar, this number is much lower. Exact estimates differ, but the true number is probably much lower than overly-optimistic government estimates, somewhere in the low single digits. Building a less efficient energy infrastructure will stifle development in the third world and lower standards of living. Of course, people in China and India understand this which is why they are building new coal plants hand over fist. One new coal plant raised eyebrows as it was built to support the massive energy needs of the nearby solar panel manufacturing facility.
In my belief, nuclear power is the one and only solution to solving the energy crisis while preserving the environment. Sadly, the environmental movement has prevented nuclear energy from reaching its full potential. In my opinion, organizations like Greenpeace bear a higher share of responsibility for climate change than oil companies like Exxon.
I'm sure I'll get pushback on a lot of this, and I could do a better job with citations, etc.. It really deserves an effort post but buried in the thread this feels like the max level of effort that can be justified.
Yeah, I agree with you on all these points. As an environmentalist it often feels my biggest opponents are other environmentalists. : (
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