Do you remember the days of eagerly awaiting for the double edition Radio Times Christmas special to hit the newsstands? Heading straight for the film section and circling in red pen all the films that must be watched or recorded over the coming two weeks?
Maybe it is just me, but in honour of one of my favourite cinematic guilty pleasures and an exasperating year just gone, with tongue firmly lodged in cheek, here are 10 things I hated about tech in 2014.
1. I hate the volatile love affair between tech and the stock market
The market swooned in February as shares soared way too high, before being dumped mercilessly in the spring. Fifteen years after dotcom it remains a wild ride.
2. I hate how ballsy entrepreneurs can be relative to us investors.
Pushing the button on a $19bn investment, aged 29? No problem for Zuckerberg making his audacious bid for Whatsapp. I feel sick buying a new pair of shoes.
3. I hate the way you always forget there is a price for everything.
The IPO of King seemed like an easy miss; a one hit wonder with a ludicrous £4bn valuation. Anyone with that perspective would have been feeling pretty smug in October after it had halved. But then it shot from $11 to $18. Wait a minute…
4. I hate that Virtual Reality is no longer a stupid idea.
After thirty years of failure it seemed a safe conclusion that VR was going nowhere. Then along comes Oculus and game developers everywhere are rushing out their Rift versions. And what about that other sci-fi staple, AI? Google spent $400m on DeepMind and my old professor tells me the time is now. The future of the eighties has finally arrived.
5. I hate how your heroes always let you down.
Dre came “straight outta Compton” but is now the self-proclaimed first billionaire of hip-hop. I know that hip-hop has a pretty unreconstructed relationship with money (it’s all about the Benjamins) but surely putting your name to a headphone brand and then selling it to the world’s largest company for $3bn is a bit too establishment?
6. I hate the way we keep getting hacked!
Sony? eBay had already given away our names and addresses back in March. Security vendors are making a killing in this environment, but how long before customers start asking why they are not doing their job. Be careful what you wish for.
7. I hate that Sapphire was ever invented.
Invented? Yes, it can be manufactured artificially. I could also tell you its 9 Mohs of hardness, specific refractive index and the end of cracked iPhone screens. Then the company at the centre of it all filed for bankruptcy, wiping out $2bn of investor capital overnight.
8. I hate the sudden discrepancy between the private and public markets.
Hortonworks IPO’d at $13/share having taken investment in July at $24. What on earth does that mean?
9. I hate that DRAM is sexy again, maybe….
A vital component of all compute, but perennially oversupplied, DRAM memory companies finally turned a profit in 2014. Will they keep this up, or will leader Samsung revert to their modus operandi of fighting to the death? Stop teasing, we want to know!
10. And finally, I hate that the oil price is now below $60.
Surely that means cheaper petrol, cheaper air fares and a boost to economic activity? Perhaps, but it also means I have to listen to ‘experts’ on CNBC all day talking about how $60 is a floor, next to the guy telling me Facebook shares are going to $107 and the Nasdaq will hit 5,000 on the first Tuesday in March.
Really? Where were you on the nine points above, when I needed you?? There are two types of people in the market: those that don’t know, and those that don’t know they don’t know. Roll on 2015, and Merry Christmas.
Featured imagine courtesy of Flickr/Hutson Hayward/Creative Commons