How software re-eats the world - #431
When Marc Andreessen said that "software is eating the world," we all nodded along. It was (and is!) true that 'businesses are being run on software' and 'delivered as online services.' In the longer view, what software has eaten is less the business or industry and more their information flows. Software is a whole lot better at bytes than atoms. Want proof? Just look at what my almost-self-driving car does on snowy road: its systems shut down because their sensors can no longer identify the lane. (As a highly addicted downhill skier, my minivan is on snowy roads more than you'd advise.) The software is great until there's no data.