That's right, and I'm not at all convinced that the author of the TechCrunch article is correct.
But there is one important difference between the past 20 years and the 20 years before that. The number of people participating in a self-employed or entrepreneurial role has been far greater in the past two decades than before.
We did see some of that during the PC revolution as well, but it was disproportionally smaller in scale.
I haven't done the research to say whether there were historical periods before in which such large swaths of the population were gripped by the idea that they could start their own business based on a new technology.
It's possible that it happened before, but I don't think it was like that between 1975 and 1995. Certainly not towards the end of that period because I would remember.
But there is one important difference between the past 20 years and the 20 years before that. The number of people participating in a self-employed or entrepreneurial role has been far greater in the past two decades than before.
We did see some of that during the PC revolution as well, but it was disproportionally smaller in scale.
I haven't done the research to say whether there were historical periods before in which such large swaths of the population were gripped by the idea that they could start their own business based on a new technology.
It's possible that it happened before, but I don't think it was like that between 1975 and 1995. Certainly not towards the end of that period because I would remember.