https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/03/im-ok-being-left-behind-thanks/

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2026-03-20

I'm OK being left behind, thanks!

AI crypto future technology * 29 comments * 450 words * 
Viewed ~38,936 times

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Many years ago, someone tried to get me into cryptocurrencies.
"They're the future of money!" they said. I replied saying that I'd
rather wait until they were more useful, less volatile, easier to
use, and utterly reliable.

"You don't want to get left behind, do you?" They countered.

That struck me as a bizarre sentiment. What is there to be left
behind from? If BitCoin (or whatever) is going to liberate us all
from economic drudgery, what's the point of "getting in early"? It'll
still be there tomorrow and I can join the journey whenever it is
sensible for me.

Part of the crypto grift was telling people to "Have Fun Staying Poor
". That weaponisation of FOMO was an insidious way to get people to
drop their scepticism.

I feel the same way about the current crop of AI tools. I've tried a
bunch of them. Some are good. Most are a bit shit. Few are useful to
me as they are now. I'm utterly content to wait until their hype has
been realised. Why should I invest in learning the equivalent of
WordStar for DOS when Google Docs is coming any-day-now?

If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it
up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours.

I didn't use Git when it first came out. Once it was stable and jobs
began demanding it, I picked it up. Might I be 7% more effective if
I'd suffered through the early years? Maybe. But so what? I could
just as easily have wasted my time learning something which never
took off.

I wrote my MSc on The Metaverse. Learning to built VR stuff was fun,
but a complete waste of time. There was precisely zero utility in
having gotten in early.

Perhaps there are some things for which it is sensible to be on the
cutting edge. I took part in a vaccine trial because I thought it
might personally benefit me and, hopefully, humanity.

But I'm struggling to think of anyone who has earned anything more
than bragging rights by being first. Some early investors made money
- but an equal and opposite number lost money. For every HTML 2.0 you
might have tried, you were just as likely to have got stuck in the
dead-end of Flash.

There are a 16,000 new lives being born every hour. They're all
starting with a fairly blank slate. Are you genuinely saying that
they'll all be left behind because they didn't learn your technology
in utero?

No. That's obviously nonsense.

It is 100% OK to wait and see if something is actually useful.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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29 thoughts on "I'm OK being left behind, thanks!"

 1. [658d5e3c]

    Alex Gibson

    Totally agree. One does not need to BE an early adopter of
    everything. IF it were even possible, it would be stressful and
    ruinously expensive to try to adopt the latest bleeding edge
    version of everything. I think it's healthy and good, especially
    if your career is in tech, to have SOME area of exposure to the
    cutting edge of a field, because it interests you enough to
    reward in its own right, or to open doors professionally. In my
    3D printing business I make do with IT infrastructure devices
    that could feature on an LTT video as 'retro', but are all
    absolutely FINE (and security patched up to date), but following
    a recent refresh we now field a lot of very good, modern desktop
    3D printers, under a year old and capable of massively better
    quality than our older machines and with fewer vices - because
    the game had moved on. I also have truly bleeding edge tech,
    which can be deployed on a project by project basis, where some
    risk and experimentation is baked into the quote. Familiarity and
    standardisation have value. Inventing under an SLA is bad for
    one's sleep, which I increasingly value...

    Reply 2026-03-20 13:12

 2. [] Infrapink (he/his/him)

    @blog

    A little while ago I gave a presentation on AI at my job, where I
    explained in detail exactly why it's useless. A manager who has a
    sentiment similar to yours asked how I would respond to "But we
    can't be left behind!" I managed to quip "It's perfectly fine to
    be left behind when everybody else is running towards a cliff".

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.ie 2026-03-20 13:38

 3. [] jimfl

    @blog https://fomocoin.org/

    Reply | Reply to original comment on hachyderm.io 2026-03-20
    13:40

 4. [] Noomsh

    @blog
    Right out of school, I got a job as a VR developer. Just under
    two years in, I had to leave. They could claim they were using VR
    to study and practice complex cases, but in reality, most of my
    work ended up as a novelty, shown post-surgery at talks or
    conferences.
    A few years later, I'm really glad I left. Some things are all
    hype and no substance and they never change, at least not for the
    better.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.social 2026-03-20
    14:07

     1. [] Joyce Park

        @noomsh @blog My husband worked on the team at MSFT that made
        the Hololens software. The whole team got laid off a couple
        years ago. I have a friend who worked on the Meta Quest and
        after his team got laid off they reformed as a VR game
        studio. Now they're pivoting again to Steam and mobile.

        Reply | Reply to original comment on hachyderm.io 2026-03-20
        14:29

         1. [] Noomsh

            @troutgirl @blog
            And that's the second reason I'm glad I left VR. Though
            it would be incredibly naive to think my current job is
            safe from layoffs :cries-in-still-have-mortgage-to-pay:

            Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.social
            2026-03-20 14:42

 5. [] news.ycombinator.com

    I'm OK being left behind, thanks | Hacker News

    Reply | Reply to original comment on 2026-03-20 14:08

 6. [] FandaSin

    @blog

    Lately I'm enjoying JOMO - "Joy of missing out" on so many
    things.

    So anytime anyone tries FOMO on me, I'm "I'll be reading book
    while you enjoy you [insert your MUST TRY poison of choice]".

    Reply | Reply to original comment on social.linux.pizza
    2026-03-20 14:12

 7. [] Shaun Chamberlin

    @blog Highly recommend #BrettScott's exceptional piece on this:

    https://www.asomo.co/p/tech-doesnt-make-our-lives-easier

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mstdn.social 2026-03-20
    14:20

 8. [20d636b7]

    [] Thomas Boutell

    I was an early adopter of the web, and I'll be honest, that was a
    huge boon to my career. Sometimes, timing is a genuine advantage.

    But as you point out, in a thousand other cases things just
    didn't work out. Or they worked out much more gradually and being
    the first didn't matter so much.

    Reply 2026-03-20 14:33

 9. [] Chris

    @blog schrodinger's ai is extremely easy to use and utterly
    intuitive but also if you dont start using it now now now youll
    get left behind!

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.social 2026-03-20
    14:34

10. [] Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP [?] [?]

    @blog

    Saying you will regret being left behind is an admission it is a
    Ponzi Scheme where only early adopters benefit and everyone else
    gets screwed.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mstdn.ca 2026-03-20 14:35

     1. [] PhDog

        This is the only correction I could offer to OP: some people
        who got in early on crypto wound up loaded, which happens to
        some people who get in early on Ponzi schemes.

        @the5thColumnist @blog

        Reply | Reply to original comment on kpop.social 2026-03-20
        15:53

11. [bafkreia]

    [] Dan Thornton

    Nice post - and definitely helps ease some of the FOMO that's
    encouraged by people generally with a vested interest in selling
    tools/solutions... 

    Reply | Reply to original comment on bsky.app 2026-03-20 15:05

12. [] Billy Smith

    @blog

    One mentor told me that working in technology means that you are
    always having to guess which new technology will take off, and
    which will crash.

    Wait till it hits the commodity end of the hype cycle and, while
    you won't win the lottery, you won't lose as you didn't play. 

    Reply | Reply to original comment on social.coop 2026-03-20 15:10

13. [] Semitones

    @blog Also by using them you're a participating in their theft of
    writers and artists' work so there's that too.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on tiny.tilde.website
    2026-03-20 15:16

14. [] vicarvernon

    @blog there's a reason the cutting edge of something, say
    technology, is often called the bleeding edge. It's far too often
    expensive and hurts.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.me.uk 2026-03-20
    15:17

15. [3adfacc2]

    rbtms

    A lot of the cryptocoin early adopters (bitcoin era) were
    technically literate people who were also passionate about the
    potential of the technology, but I don't think those are the kind
    of people who would say you are getting "behind". People who use
    acronyms such as HFSP are those that don't care what they invest
    into as long as it can give them a short-term return. It's such a
    shame that the way it has evolved reassembles a money laundering
    scheme and benefits mostly those who are able to accumulate the
    biggest amount, which are, coincidentally, the people who can
    afford such investment in the first place.

    Reply 2026-03-20 15:36

16. [] Nu Modular

    @blog Here's some sustainable math:

    If an opposite doesn't have a minimum Phi/Pi root in a middle
    range; it's 'brief art'.

    Soft money/value has to have long-term rooting in middle Hard
    metrics, in order to avoid wild swings that lack the mitigating,
    stabilizing middle - especially when you consider the vast use of
    money in local~global value systems.

    See: Value Theory, Systems Theory, Set Theory

    Reply | Reply to original comment on c.im 2026-03-20 15:37

17. [] @^ap

    @blog I really dislike the mentality that crypto cemented in the
    minds of the general public, that if you are simply a FAN of a
    thing early that it will make you rich.

    I think this is a lot of what is behind the AI spam problem as
    people have had to come to terms with the fact that they do not
    in fact hold a claudecoin that will reward them for sitting on
    their ass. That claude sub is actually the reverse, where they
    are paying for the privilege of feeling like they are early.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on social.treehouse.systems
    2026-03-20 15:58

18. [] Chuff

    This speaks to me, this is my approach to just about anything
    that's being sold to me, whether the latest thing like crypto or
    AI, or even more basic stuff like food or clothing or phones

    Reply | Reply to original comment on bark.wolp.chat 2026-03-20
    16:27

19. [6239eb97]

    Petrie

    If I'm not mistaken, please correct me if I'm wrong but
    technically there is no such thing as HTML 2.0. the specification
    flowed as followed: HTML 1.0. then HTML 1.1 and then it jumped to
    HTML 4.0. and then jumped to XHTML 4.4. and then jumped to HTML
    5. Please don't sell, publish or spam my email. Thank you.

    Reply 2026-03-20 16:38

     1. [f7673bfc]

        [] @edent

        You can read about HTML 2 at https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/
        html-spec/

        There's also HTML 3 https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/
        CoverPage.html and 3.2 https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Wilbur/

        For more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML#
        HTML_version_timeline

        Reply 2026-03-20 16:52

20. [] derptron

    @blog "I could just as easily have wasted my time learning
    something which never took off."

    I purposefully choose this option if I can find it.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.social 2026-03-20
    16:42

21. [043353f6]

    Eric

    You are totally missing the point. the fomo regarding AI is that
    it's very unregulated and powerful right now and you can do a lot
    of things you won't be able to do in the future as it gets locked
    down, just like the internet did. it's the same with Bitcoin, the
    fomo is missing out on getting rich at this early stage, not it's
    day to day utility.

    Reply 2026-03-20 17:07

22. [] Maximilien Danton

    @blog they don't call it the bleeding edge for nothing,
    especially when your "self driving" car slams into oncoming
    traffic.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mastodon.social 2026-03-20
    17:46

23. [] eclexic

    @blog the other part about this for me is... What am I getting
    left behind in? Partaking in what I'm fairly confident a
    functioning legal system would consider intellectual property
    theft? I'll wait until that is ironed out, thanks.

    This is a bit of a hyperbolic example, but my mind immediately
    goes to slavery. Slavery wasn't legal in England when the
    transatlantic slave trade started... And yet people were
    partaking in it with no consequences. That never made it good and
    the law did return.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mstdn.social 2026-03-20
    18:24

24. [] Ian Douglas Scott

    @blog This is what I keep saying. Specifically in relation to
    developing skills with "AI".

    Either:
    * The technology rapidly gets better, such that any skills you
    develop now are just workarounds for issues that it soon won't
    have.
    * The technology stagnates, in which case it probably isn't as
    important as they're saying.

    Reply | Reply to original comment on mathstodon.xyz 2026-03-20
    20:35

25. [svg]

    More comments on Mastodon.

Trackbacks and Pingbacks

 1. [] Fi [?][?][?]

    See, this here is a healthy perspective: getting immediately
    onboard as an early adopter for every new trend is not helpful.
    If it turns out to be genuinely useful, you can just pick it up
    at a time that works for you.

    https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/03/im-ok-being-left-behind-thanks/

        2026-03-20 16:06   

 2. [] Rachel A. Rosen

    I love this. 1) If it works as promised it'll be easy to learn,
    and 2) If the future is technofascism, extractionism, and
    destroying the earth, I'm okay with not being a part of it.

        2026-03-20 14:29   

 3. [] Reply to: I'm OK being left behind, thanks! - Dan Q

    [...] Terence Eden said: [...]

        2026-03-20 14:09   

 4. [] mhoye

    As far as technology is concerned, "you're going to be left
    behind" and "I want to be a part of the herd and you should want
    that too" are the same argument.

    https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/03/im-ok-being-left-behind-thanks/

        2026-03-20 13:13   

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