Facebook is not just a photo uploader in PHP. I can assure you that's not why Mark built it. Instagram is not just a photo app with filters. These products add more value than the sum of the parts. A car is not simply a combustion engine with wheels. Who would buy that? They buy it, because it takes them somewhere. Who would want a photo uploader in PHP? It's used because users find value in seeing their friends in photos. You must take the tech and use that to make something of REAL value, something people would want to use and understand why they would want to use it.
But I do get what you mean. Preferably we would want to see people putting their minds into 'big' ideas, vast improvements in humanity (such as privatised spaceflight/mining). Facebook has value because it connects people, Instagram has value because it allows people to make their photos look good (and easily share it).
Do you know what Elon wanted to do before SpaceX? He wanted to put a greenhouse on Mars, just so people could get excited about space again. SpaceX isn't just about reusable rockets, it's about selling the idea of a space-faring civilization.
Sorry if I came across as a bit harsh, I'm just tired of people distilling products (that has value) into the parts, as if that is only what it 'actually' is.
There are complexities and nuances in the most 'trivial' activities of life. Brick laying is brick laying, you say, but there are several sophisticated factors at play at erecting a wall. But the core principal has remained the same "stack bricks neatly, and use a plumbing bob".
Photo sharing services have been around a long time, and i will dare say that there isnt anything significantly 'valuable' about them. And by value, i mean value to society, not some arbitrary financial random-number wall-street assigns.
The space-race produced several useful byproducts, while facebook is turning programmers into sheep who dream of writing instagram plugins.
what did we achieve from going to the moon (there was nothing there)? Only a few people even saw the moon, ~900 million of people on facebook. Even people like Neil Armstrong has come against going to the moon again and is against SpaceX
I read somewhere that the ROI from Apollo and NASA generally exceeds any other US public spending by a massive amount. The amount of space age derived technology is hard to imagine and perhaps not communicated as well as it could be.
I don't live in the US, but if I could wave a magic wand and do anything I wanted, increasing global space exploration spending x10 or more would be top of my list. The benefits would be enormous to everyone- you are pushing the very boundaries of what's possible, you are going to uncover some interesting new tech along the way. If the US got into a massive space race with China (sending a manned spacecraft on Mars for example) the benefits would be felt globally for decades. Pity it takes a rivalry to create the urgency for doing such ambitious projects, instead of doing them because they are worthy goals.
The funny thing is that the people making their money in software and entertainment: John Carmack, Elon Musk, Larry Page, James Cameron, etc... are the ones getting us to space and re-igniting the space program that the general population lost interest in funding a long time ago.
I say: Let the people with big ideas and great implementation skills make all the money they can legally. They're the ones we want to fund so they can pursue new interests and create new markets.
Very true and that's an interesting article. The Shuttle Program is a great example of an idea that should have been allowed to fail. At very least (in YC terms), NASA needed to pivot hard much earlier on.
The opportunity cost to mankind only existed because politicians and bureaucrats didn't get their funding and power from success at getting cargo and people into space economically and safely. They got it from overplaying their hands on past successes, diverting dollars to their constituencies and contractors to "bring home the bacon", and plain dumb government spending momentum.
In other words, the incentive model of the Shuttle Program (and of NASA in general) was broken and no one with sufficient power ever did anything about it.
Agreed. The Shuttle, as operated, was a pretty stupid design, compared to the alternatives. I admire the folks who ran it for making it run as long and safely as it did. But it was insanely expensive. And fundamentally inferior, inefficient and risker compared to say just having a cylindrical multi-stage rocket and putting a payload on top of it, ala Saturn, Delta, Falcon, etc.
