Computers aren't interesting anymore. Americans are still using high tech, but more and more of the consuming public has fallen out of love with it. Tech is a tool, not a religion. This little story of how a writer fell out of love with his computer catalog may seem like small potatoes, but I think it explains both why the so-called new economy has blown up in investors' faces and why the good old economy is going to keep chugging along. Business is about making money, not about using technological wonders.
High tech is fun, but tech is, let's face it, a cost.
Cutting-edge tech sold at premium prices is an extra cost and, for the great majority of businesses, an unnecessary one. What we've seen with the variety of new technologies coming on line in recent years ranging from computers to the Internet to the various aspects of the telecom revolution is a classic case of a technology boom losing touch with its economic underpinnings. Bewitched by the dazzle factor of the new technologies, idiots like me were buying more computing power than they needed, and replacing old machines much faster and more frequently than they should have. A final group of idiots completed the cycle by believing the stock analysts and buying shares in the companies that were investing in all this technology to deliver us power that we didn't actually need. Now the process unwinds.