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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
Growth of the Internet will slow drastically after 1998.
Confidence
high (80%)
Deadline
Dec 31, 2005 · inferred
Resolution rule
Hit if global Internet users grew more slowly in 1998-2005 than in 1991-1998. Miss otherwise.
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.

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