Mark, as to the Steel analogy:
While there will a point when the industry is mature, and profits hard to come by, I don't see it yet. Cars matured because quality improved and innovation slowed so that at some point people stopped feeling the need to get a new one every 3 years, which was standard practice up into the 70's. In contrast, we certainly are still in a period of great innovation, and massive improvement in computer product every 3 years. Secondly, the percentage of people on the planet who have computers is still quite small overall. Thirdly, at some point the "last mile" problem will be resolved, and there will be investment in infrastructure and equipment to tap into the bandwidth. Fourthly, computers are used more and more in business functions that previously had little computational ability beyond a bookkeeping program and a cash register. I see, for instance, more and more restaurants with specialized set-ups to handle orders, and some waiters are using the equivalent of a Palm Pilot hooked into the system. Hospital systems are more and more based on computer systems.
But I do see your point nonetheless. The machines are more reliable now, for less inflation-adjusted cost, and at some point people will just keep their computers longer. But I don't see technology's share of GDP peaking anytime soon. |
