Silly girl! Marketeers stop hyping. Bloggers stop blogging. Troll stop tolling. No more misleading stories driving up eyeballs. Everybody sitting back and being thoughtful? A century ago William Randolph Hearst sold us a war. I dont think anything has changed.
A reasonable argument: The hype cycle is a law of human nature.
Another possibility is that the hype cycle is deliberately designed. That's also kind of what you are saying: If the hype cycle didn't exist, tech reporters or venture capitalists would probably have invented it.
To a physicist the hype cycle looks like a very slightly underdamped oscillator. [1] It oscillates a bit... but only for one or two cycles. And the pain caused by the "Trough of Disillusionment" is quite possibly outweighed by the utility of that initial steep slope. Or by the risk that, if you try to design the perfectly damped hype cycle, you will err on the side of caution and design an overdamped hype cycle, which is a disaster.
(To translate that last bit out of Physicist: If you try to design a product that is perfectly suited to its intended task, perfectly scalable -- not too little or too much -- and has perfect, clear documentation so that everyone understands exactly what it is for and what it is not for... there's a good chance that you will design something that is ever-so-slightly wrong for the market, and everyone will know that it is wrong (thanks to your complete honesty and clarity) and it will take a little too long to fix (because it's so thoroughly overengineered)... and by the time you get it fixed the quick-and-dirty hack will have stolen your mindshare and your market. Or you'll just run out of money before getting it fixed.)
---
[1] Of course, as Bruce Sterling once pointed out, the cycle is incomplete. Nobody ever draws the right half of the curve, which includes "obsolescence", "death", "consignment to collectors on eBay", and "rebirth as a cool, retro fashion accessory".
From run-on sentences to misplaced prepositions, this piece has it all:
_But_ it’s not all kumbaya here. _And_ one of the most destructive things about Silicon Valley is the hype cycle. _And_ judging by the fact that some bloggers pronounced Twitter “done” the same week the company was featured on Oprah, it’s clear that hype cycle has spun ludicrously out of control.
I’m sure you’ve seen the graphs. If not, it’s to the left.
It starts to attain huge growth and buzz. >> urgh, loose English ftl!
He was built up as the young, shoe-less God of the Internet that the press brutally tore him down once the crash changed the viability of his second company, Loudcloud’s, business. >> my eyes!
Unfortunately (and I'm not trying to be harsh), it seems to me that the thinking behind this article is as loose as the writing.
What, exactly, should the hn community do about this? Should we all email Arrington and kindly notify him?
I simply don't read their articles. There hasn't been a good one that I can remember, even barring poor writing skills.
It's a game of capitalism, if you want them to improve, stop visiting their blog until they do. Until they lose traffic because of it, there's no impetus to improve.
