Bri Manning

2017 Predictions

February 5, 2017

Since I was so good at my 2016 predictions, now it’s time for 2017. We’re already a month in, so this is cheating a bit since January has been a tumultuous month in some aspects.

  1. We’ll see a push into the internet of things via various intelligent assistants. Alexa, Google Home, Siri, and Cortana will try to fill that void. They’ll try to be both an ask a question type of AI and a home automation hub. It’s happening already, but I expect to see more of it and more services integrating with it.
  2. There will be a lot of articles about millennials now buying homes or moving to the suburbs. We’re the generation that does things later in life like getting married and having kids. That will translate into home buying as well. Construction will see an uptick as a result. The real estate market is cyclical and it should still be a while until the next downturn. Hopefully the trend isn’t accelerated by the delayed timeline of millennials.
  3. Conflicts in Ukraine and eastern Europe will increase. With a Putin-friendly administration and a weakened NATO, Russia will push the envelope. It wouldn’t surprise me if trade issues with China escalate, causing more tension as well. I could go out on a limb and say we’ll see an armed conflict. It would include the EU, China, England, Russia, and the United States. But I dislike the idea of being able to say “I told you so” about that one.
  4. We’ll see near constant protests and rallies against the Trump administration. He’s already hit all-time disapproval lows. The Republicans are going to go for broke. They’ll push through as much as they can and then get punished in later elections for it. With both houses and a president who isn’t afraid of burning things down, there will be little resistance. This will be like 2008-2010 for Democrats, but the Republicans are going to work through a lot of goals. They’ll be initiatives people (including themselves) never thought they’d be able to. Things everyone thought of as pure rhetoric, like abortion bans, immigration bans, Voter ID, and social safety net cuts, will become a reality. That reality will be uglier than people realize.
  5. There will be no major changes at any of the big technology companies. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Apple, Amazon are all in an incremental improvement mode. There will be better mousetraps made, but not new ideas from the big companies.
  6. The gig or freelance economy will grow. Unfortunately, because of the repeal of the ACA, it won’t grow as fast or as well as it could. There’s a large opportunity here, and the US is going to miss out on it soon.
  7. More “independent media outlets” will crop up. They won’t make a major name for themselves. Instead they’ll ride the wave of fake news and confirmation bias. By using social networks, they will be successful enough to sustain themselves. There’s room for change in news media because of the (mostly ill-conceived) distrust. But biased and dishonest sources shouldn’t be what fills it.
  8. Tesla and electric and self-driving cars will make larger strides. We’ll start to see trucking and consumer applications of them in many places. The fall of the truck driver as the most popular job will hit many places hard. It’s true in most red states. The differences between the two different Americas will become more pronounced. Clever politicians will spin the cause to blame some vilified “other” instead of the natural progression of technology. The coal and oil industries blame regulations instead of economics and technology. It’s the same technique.
  9. Cable subscriptions will continue to go down. More media companies will allow you to go directly to them for on-demand access. The unbundling won’t happen at the cable company level. Instead those media providers will be able to go straight to consumers. Cable companies and ISPs are going to fight tooth-and-nail against this. In particular, they will use the Trump’s administration’s stance on Network Neutrality as a club.
  10. There’s an opportunity for someone to make a Google Fi-like service. One to serve as a primary ISP for consumers. The company can scale without the same infrastructure and use 5G in place of a cable connection. Dropbox can give everyone 1TB of space because few people will use that much space. It’s like insurance. Very few people who pay for it actually cost the company money. A new wireless company could create a cross-carrier system that offers extreme bandwidth. They know that only power users will come close to that limit. This is unlikely. I’d love it and would sign up immediately. Having this and/or more wireless carriers is only way to have true market competition. It’s the only way to nullify the concern about Network Neutrality. If the market is there to handle it, the regulation doesn’t need to be.

The biggest issues will continue to be the large disparity in economic achievement. It’s why you can have different world views based on different truths in today’s America. We’re seeing different realities because our realities are different. The geographic differences translate into cultural and economic differences. That makes each side think the other is crazy and out-of-touch.

A few of these I’m excited about. Others I hope I’m wrong about.

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