This past year has seen many interesting developments in the world with some being good and some being bad. One thing that I didn't do so well at was writing more often. In order for that to happen, I need to just sit down and write out what I am thinking (my problem being, when it comes to writing, I over think it to the point of not doing any writing at all.) So to start off the new year and the new decade, I thought it would be a good idea to come up with some forecasts for the following year ahead as well as review the forecasts I had from last year. So without further ado, let's get started.

• Last year I predicted that the tech backlash or "techlash"  would continue and indeed I was correct. All of the tech CEOs were brought before congress and questioned with some good questions, but mostly bad questions. As it stands right now, the economy is dominated by the giant tech firms and that will continue for the time being. In the past decade, all of their stocks have traded up and made investors happy so nobody has much of an urge to try and stop them. But there are bigger problems brewing with the U.S. presidential election about to pick up steam. The Republicans have remained mostly quiet about techs dominance (mostly quiet, when they aren't complaining about conservative censorship). However, the Democratic presidential hopefuls are skewering tech left and right with some candidates promising to break up the big companies. My forecast is that tech will continue to be skewered in the media and by these presidential hopefuls but not much will change. They are all central to our lives and will remain so for now. (80% probability this will continue)
• Content Creators are the new thing. Why is this? Because everyone is a creator now and can make money selling what they create. I fall into this category based on the work I do for a living and so I find this trend extremely fascinating and enticing. The internet has enabled anybody with a connection to it to sell a piece of themselves. The content that is being created is a piece of that person. I would like to write more about this but as for now, this is a trend that will continue in the new year and beyond. (95% probability this will continue)
• The no-code movement is an interesting idea to me. I see it gaining traction in the DTC (direct-to-consumer) space and that makes sense. Founders want to have a working store up and running immediately so they can begin selling their products right away. The app is the store-front, the internet is the distribution, and the customer is on the other end. So by focusing less on building out infrastructure, no-code enables a founder to build their brand and connect with their audience immediately. Where I start to lose interest is in the idea of no-code itself. It still feels like a bland marketing term. (95% probability that founders will continue to build for their audience in any way necessary but a 60% probability that no-code as a marketing term will stick around)
• Crypto and blockchain are still around but have fallen by the wayside to everyone except for those still directly involved in it. What is interesting about this sector to me is how religious it has become. While the prices are still seeing a bit of a slump and it seems that isn't much interest in it from the mainstream, the industry itself is heads down building. This is a good thing. What has always been needed is less concern of prices and more concern with actually building technology people want to use. There are still some innovative projects being worked on such as Filecoin (IPFS), Blockstack, the DeFi space, and Bitcoin overall. It would be nice to see some new ground made with these projects, but we will see what happens. Both the SEC and the IRS still don't know how to properly work with this new technology and that might be keeping many people out for now. But what has been established over the past few years is the crypto is a viable way to raise resources for a project and business and anyone can do it. That still remains exciting to me so I do hope there are more great things to come for the space. (75% probability the industry will keep pushing forward)
• There is a U.S. presidential election in 2020 and I don't have any idea who will win, nor will I forecast a winner. What I will forecast is that there will be a hellish year ahead where many of the social networks may be weaponized again and people may or may not get their information from memes. God help us all.
• Finally, I want to write more, so I will. This is what I wrote last year: "For me personally I am planning on writing more about the role of media in our culture today. This will include everything from music, entertainment, gaming, VR and the like to how media effects our culture in general and the role technology is playing in culture around us. It's my way of helping us find our way forward." It's time to stick to it.

Onward.

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