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His comment about WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS suggests he missed the significance of the GUI too. I think he didn't realize the web and email would see truly widespread adoption versus merely being another thing that made the tiny minority of people who (really) used computers slightly happier.

He wasn't wrong if you consider he was talking about macro. He appears to be addressing the claim that the standard of living was going to shoot up so high that we'd all be able to live cheaply and not work as much. He predicted instead that demand would stay high since more tech would cause us to keep wanting more.

Sometimes I think there are more anti-Krugman people than actual economists...

disclaimer: I only read a small part of the article

That's a really good question.

After thinking about it a bit, I'd suggest it was technological naivety - he didn't see ecommerce coming (!?) or thought that there was some reason it would fail.

I suspect he was deliberately being contrarian and pessimistic too.