← Back to feed
Paul Krugman
Paul KrugmanNobel laureate economist and longtime New York Times columnist.
DUE

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

Red Herring · Jun 1, 1998 · source · archived snapshot · hindsight clip

Admitted by the site's editor alone — Seeded by the site owner at launch; single-operator admission (ADR-0012).

Normalized claim
By around 2005 the Internet's impact on the economy will be no greater than the fax machine's.
Confidence
high (80%)
Deadline
Dec 31, 2005
Resolution rule
Hit if by end of 2005 the Internet's measured contribution to economic output was comparable to that of fax. Miss if it was clearly larger (e-commerce, search, online advertising as sizeable industries).
Crowd vote
No crowd votes were recorded.

Voting closed at the deadline.

More from Paul Krugman

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

DUE

If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

DUE