I think the actual timeline is:

VR
Self-driving cars
Crypto (blockchain)
NFTs (blockchain again)
Metaverse (VR again)
AI

My guess is the next thing will just be AI repackaged in several different ways.

agreed. we are drowning in tech critiques that don’t lead anywhere or propose an alternative future.

nearly every good, practical piece of advice i would, today, opt to pass down to my younger self is exactly the sort of thing i would have had absolutely no time for at that age.

finding this piano so i can perform acoustic shepard tones on it

paying someone to do the chugging harmonica thing behind me anytime I'm walking anywhere

LeGuin has so many good books, but Left Hand is really the best one. There's more good stuff in the Hainish Cycle. The Dispossessed is good, but I think her Hainish short stories are the next best sci-fi she wrote (A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a favorite).

Earthsea is also remarkable.

...that journalist perspective on all the things wrong with the tech industry is a severely limited perspective.

we're dying for a pragmatic and positive vision for the future of technology, which is something that only those who build things can provide.

i couldn't agree more. tech-critical journalism was late in coming and we (finally) now have an excess of good sources who are doing good work exposing the worst excesses of the industry (ed being probably the most apoplectic).

however...

the distinction between growth/cost-related skepticism winning out seems hard to distinguish from the outside.

if you think markets will be optimistic about huge hardware investments that are probably only useful in a broadly AI-driven future, you make that investment.

if not, then not.