There's a second 2024 thread here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38614465

Reading through the two 2024 threads I'm struck that most predictions a) were completely wrong b) reflected more what people wanted to happen rather than what was likely.

Edit: now that I've read through this thread I'll add c) were much more hopeful than this year's predictions.

This is mostly just for fun and will be mostly wrong because none of the people who are making predictions take it seriously. And none of the upvoters take it seriously either.

There is a discipline to making predictions (Phil Tetlock has observed a few traits: avoiding base rate fallacies, working in probabilities not binaries, making falsifiable predictions, and continuously updating).

None of the predictions here do that, so we shouldn’t expect any kind of reasonable hit rate.

It’s just end of year fun.

It reflects the mood, which tells me all I need to know about things like short term stock changes. In reality nobody can predict the future. My predictions have historically also been way off, but what is surprising to me is that people don't reflect on their misses. For the most part I've given up in predicting anything, at best I will look at trends and see if there's something there or not.

But with that said I will now post my predictions for 2025 :-).

Post your portfolio alongside please :)

> reflected more what people wanted to happen rather than what was likely.

I think that is true of most predictions.

Crazy how wrong people were in the top 2024 comments.

Indeed someone predicted vision pro will be wildly popular.

Yes. People are not stupid. It's one thing to have a phone in your purse. It's another to have something on your head and eyes, like how is anyone going to agree to that? Sure if it was very cheap you'd find some interested folks.

I remember being called outdated, a contrarian and 'in the way of progress' on this site when I expressed doubt that the Vision Pro would be 'the next iPhone', as people on this site put it. I was told that our way of working would change within the year and that everybody would be scrambling to emulate Apple.

I don't mind enthusiasm and excitement, but for others to directly make such bold claims then put others down was a disappointing experience for me here.

Some people will just never get out of Apple's Reality Distortion Field, willingly or unwillingly.

Could it be the top comments even though most voted are also most commented and more divisive and controversial? And the most boring comments are somewhere at the back? Hence big amount of failed predictions at the top.

I was eeading an article on this a while ago tgat i sadly cant find but you should expect these threads to be wildly incorrect because people can read everyone elses predictiobs and be swayed by them. The wisdom of the crowd only appears to work when nobody gets to see otger results first and then the median position is wgat is usually most accurate.

I think I recently (few days ago, that is in the last few days of 2024) saw a Vsauce video/short about this regarding a trial trying to use the wisdom of the crowd to get an accurate number for the amount of jelly beans in a large jar. The trial was similarly skewed by "open" predictions, concretely people being allowed to give their predictions while in the presence of their group (friends/family/etc). Unfortunately I cannot seem to find it, but your comment reminded me of that.

This one from 2010 is just creepy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1027093

betting on the opposite of what HN predicts seems like a pretty safe bet if you read the old threads.

Reminds me of a running joke with a friend.

His stock picks are so off I told him to create an inverse etf of his picks and I would pile into that, at least one of us would make some money.

After losing my shirt some years earlier I announced to my wife that I was ready to get into the buying shares again. She agreed, but only if I bought good ones this time.

2009 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=416530