Both Benedict Evans and I wrote posts about the year we are now in, 2015, as we enter it.
My approach was to take a swing at some predictions. They generated a ton of conversation and are still generating it. It seems that people really love to debate predictions.
Ben’s approach is to put forward a bunch of questions that will likely be answered this year. In many ways, his approach is more helpful. He raises the issue without giving the answer, forcing all of us to think about how to answer it. I suspect Ben has opinions on how all of these questions will be answered, but he left his opinions out so that we can form our own.
That’s not entirely true however. My favorite of his questions was this one:
Is this the year that the Bitcoin blockchain starts producing real consumer products? If so, they’ll be on mobile first
And there you can see his opinion coming out in the latter part of that question. And I agree with him, bitcoin is easier to grok and use on mobile. A native mobile application using bitcoin and the blockchain does seem likely to be the first killer application for this technology. I referenced that a bit in this post from a few months ago.
I don’t regret taking a shot at predicting the future. That’s what we do all day long to be honest. And if we end up with a career batting average of .333, we will go to the hall of fame. I am sure I will be wrong on many (most?) of my predictions. But that’s how it goes. Asking the questions is safer for sure. But answering them is more fun. So when you look at Ben’s questions, try to answer them. It’s a good exercise for everyone to undertake as we enter the new year.
