Even 50 years on, we don’t understand Moore’s Law.
Moore’s Law accelerates the pace of change in every direction. It’s not just about silicon. It’s not just about technology. It’s about what is enabled.
Two things that are enabled by technology are deflation and change. The first is a subset of the second. Technology lets consumers and businesses adjust to change rapidly. This is true not just because technology is improving, but because its adoption keeps increasing.
Moving technology from a desktop to a smartphone is a step change in its adoption. Smartphones let us compare prices inside a store. They let us route around traffic jams. They bring the office to the job site. You can find whatever you need to know, from anywhere, using a smartphone.
A world of instant answers means a world of instant adjustment. Demand can adjust faster than supply, but supply can adjust too. We all went into lockdown together, we all came out of it together, we all demanded products together, then we demanded services together. There was a lag, but by and large the economy has kept up.
Some changes are permanent. We don’t need offices the way we did. You can appear on TV from your living room, kitchen, or bedroom. What I’ve seen, as a business reporter, is that the economy can now react ahead of policymakers. Even the Federal Reserve, which can adjust policy every month or even within a month, can no longer keep up.
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