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Comment by hyperthesis | Hacker News Reader

Agree, infrastructure is worthless, applications are everything.

Mr Edison is famous for "the lightbulb" (actually, "a"), but what he really did was lightbulbs + power stations (through General Electric).

Mr Birdseye is famous for frozen fish, but what [the company who bought his patent] really did was frozen fish + freezers in supermarkets.

The joke about the first telephone being the hardest sell (because there's no-one to call) has another problem, of no phone-lines, exchanges or (today's) cell-towers.

\muse I wonder if a solution to holes/monopoly abuse is to ease entry-to-market? The standard incumbent response is to deny oxygen to entrants, by giving great deals at the low end (like today's "free tiers"). Though, historically, regulatory capture instead raises barriers to entry.

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Infrastructure is an enabling function. To claim it’s worthless is largely missing the point. It reminds me of the mechanical engineers I once worked with in rocket engine testing. Many claimed software was largely worthless because it was only replacing existing analog alternatives.

To the articles point, the problem is about helping people connect the dots between the infrastructure and the work they really care about.

> Many claimed software was largely worthless because it was only replacing existing analog alternatives.

Reminds me of the famous and unfortunate quotes [1]

[1]https://www.ittc.ku.edu/~evans/stuff/famous.html

The Bill Gates quote at the end is unsourced. In the unlikely event Gates ever actually said or wrote that, somebody would have a citation.

He denies it himself, but a plausible explanation given here is that he perhaps meant '~ in the lifetime of this system': https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2863/did-bill-g...

(It goes back to 1985 apparently, so does seem unlikely it came from nowhere, since it wouldn't have seemed so ridiculous then.)

It would be interesting to see how many of these criticisms are criticisms of these things as they stood and not for their potential; it seems ridiculous to place the onus on the critics to see if someone can execute well in the future.

"Many claimed software was largely worthless because it was only replacing existing analog alternatives."

The most glaring flaw in that argument, especially with that specific context, is that those rockets would not exist without software.

Tbf, they the engineers I’m referencing right design The rockets but rather the test stands. They were used to things like manually actuated valves, analog data collection etc. In their world, they could have came up in industry with little to no software. Even after adoption, they thought software testing was a waste of time because “it’s just software, it doesn’t break.” Obviously, they were thinking as a mechanical engineer where “breaking” is synonymous with “wearing out” or “physically breaking”.

I wouldn't say infrastructure is worthless, more that infrastructure creates new market opportunities, and without it, markets just won't function well. For example, good roads allow farmers to transport their produce to distant markets in all weather conditions, good electricity distribution means farmers start buying washing machines, better broadband means rural people might start buying online services and so on.

Trying to game basic infrastructure for profits runs counter to this notion, and it's thus an area of the economy where government management makes the most sense.

Applications are infrastructure's value - without produce to transport (or other applications), what value roads? Infrastructure is means to application ends.

So yes, given benefiting applications, infrastructure improvements derive value.

Their value is entirely derived. They have no intrinsic value. They are, in themselves, worthless.

Just semantics.

I tend to agree with your take on public infrastructure, but I haven't thought about it enough to form a definite opinion.

\tangentially related: arguing metabolism pathways need to exist before genes can improve them https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-biochemists-view-of-lifes-o...

> Mr Birdseye is famous for frozen fish

ahem, that's Captain Birdseye, thank you very much!

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Birdseye

> power stations (through General Electric)

Edison founded GE.

I don’t think the commenter you’re replying to is using “through” in the sense of “providing power stations with the assistance of GE”, but rather “providing power by founding GE”.

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