The expression “what goes up must come down” applies to many things, including the tech industry. After decades of phenomenal growth, astounding accomplishments, and impressive moonshot initiatives, external factors are converging to drive tech companies away from the fantastic and toward the practical. A recent Wall Street Journal article stated, “With their valuations and earnings down, and their guidance gloomy, America’s tech companies have entered a phase when they have to be brutally honest with themselves about what really works.”
They’re finding the need to focus on products that some might consider dull but that consumers and businesses appreciate and that pay the bills. Tech company leaders have had to be agile and make some hard decisions, including laying off workers, being smarter with advertising dollars, and discontinuing work on pet projects. These developments might feel like a step back for tech companies. But, for consumers and businesses, it results in products that can improve their lives.
In the following sections, we explore why the “boring tech” trend is happening, what other tech trends are happening now, and what’s likely to happen next. But first, we take a closer look at the boring tech trend.
What Is the Boring Tech Trend?
While whiz-bang innovations like flying cars tend to make headlines, they’re not necessarily practical or even operational at this time. Even if they were, there would still be considerations to work out, such as safety and privacy issues. Boring technology, on the other hand, is quite simply useful.
Examples include productivity solutions for businesses, systems that allow city operators to manage municipal resources, and applications that enable consumers to easily pay their bills. These solutions are not exactly exciting but are highly functional. Many tech companies are pivoting toward the development of such solutions and away from projects with more hype but also more risk of failure.
Of course, many technologies become boring once we have seen and understood them for enough time. A recent Extreme Networks blog post pointed out that, a few years ago, drones were considered new and exciting. People theorized about what they could do, how they could help, and what problems (such as putting postal workers out of jobs) they might present. But by now, the public has become used to drones, while other technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, have taken center stage.
But the fact that drones have become less interesting to the general public reveals that the technology has been accepted and is solid enough to stand the test of time. Drones still have great potential for many uses, such as tracking inventory in shipping warehouses and checking the status of plants in the agriculture industry. And technology companies are still working in the background to develop additional features. It may be boring, but it’s well worth the effort, as the need for this technology hasn’t gone away. In fact, the need is only growing.
Another component of boring tech is deep tech, also known as functional or critical tech. According to the entrepreneurial site Maddyness, “Deep tech firms are those that sit directly behind—or many layers below—the consumer technologies we rely on daily.” That includes things like AI, blockchain, robotics, and quantum computing. The companies that innovate in these areas are more stable and, therefore, more boring than those that use them as foundations to develop splashy applications.
Contributing Factors
In addition to market factors like lower valuations and earnings, some observers believe the boring tech trend is due to tech leaders wanting to abandon their pet projects for various reasons. A recent Forbes Technology Council post called this condition a “tech-lash,” explaining that “some tech founders are leaving their old inventions behind either because they don’t feel like fixing the problems they have caused or simply because they are tired of managing them.”
The same post pointed out that there is a cultural component to the trend as well, stating that “there is an external tech-lash coming from a youth culture that wants to take it down a nudge.” One example is the “wired it girls” phenomenon, in which many celebrities have been observed using wired rather than wireless headphones.
This tech-meets-fashion phenomenon is so prevalent that an Instagram account—appropriately named Wired It Girls—has emerged. In some cases, wired headphones might be a fashion statement. In others, it could be a practical decision sending a message to tech professionals that sometimes simpler is better.
Tech companies are taking a cue from this movement and other “back to basics” preferences and are doing the same themselves, with a renewed focus on what really works. The Forbes Technology Council post noted, “The tech trend…we really need is one where we dedicate time and energy to our current technological landscape, iterate on it and fix its wrong-doings even though it may be a slow, boring process.”
Related Tech Trends
For example, rather than moving toward colonization of Mars, perhaps Elon Musk’s talents could be put to better use, finding ways to keep Earth habitable. And rather than building a metaverse, perhaps Mark Zuckerberg’s skills could be put to better use, finding ways to make the technology landscape we already have healthier and more respectful of users’ privacy.
Planetary Health Technology
As we as a society consider these questions, some are already providing answers, as matters like these are getting more attention. According to a recent article from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), “In the years to come, a digital ecosystem of data platforms will be crucial to helping the world understand and combat a host of environmental hazards, from air pollution to methane emissions.”
Such solutions can be used by both public and private sector players to improve climate conditions and UNEP is running several of them, including a digital tool called the Global Environment Monitoring System for Air (GEMS Air), which is the largest air pollution network in the world. The article states that, in 2020, over 50 million users accessed the platform, whose data is sent to digital billboards to alert people about air quality in real-time. Program operators hope to share this data with health apps.
The Freshwater Ecosystem Explorer comes from a partnership between UNEP, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and Google Earth Engine. This solution offers details about lakes and rivers across the globe to citizens and governments to help track progress toward sustainability goals.
And the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) is helping to reduce methane emissions, responsible for a quarter of global warming. The IMEO collects data from satellites, sensors, corporate reporting, and scientific studies, supporting entities working to reduce methane emissions.
Privacy in Technology
Tech companies are using their resources to address privacy concerns as well. The Privacy Sandbox, led by Google, is an initiative working to make the internet more private. It aims to replace outdated tools, such as third-party cookies and invasive tracking, that offer free information and convenience in exchange for collecting and sharing private information. The initiative is working to build new technologies that will offer the same benefits without the associated problems.
For example, it is “collaborating with the ad industry to transition to new private ad technologies and deprecating support for third-party cookies in Chrome,” according to a recent Privacy Sandbox news article. With the changes expected to take place in 2024, the article encourages advertisers to use 2023 to prepare for a “cookieless future.”
Metaverse technology also holds the potential for privacy violations. However, according to a TechTarget article, “Currently, there are no regulations or governing bodies tackling the privacy concerns that go along with new technology. This includes the metaverse’s two core technologies–VR and AR–that use potentially intrusive sensors and data collection.”
Therefore, companies that develop metaverse technologies must create their own privacy policies for platforms and the services that use them, as well as asset ownership and user-to-user communication. The TechTarget article states that, without such policies, businesses “[run] the risk of a privacy incident causing reputational damage that could go beyond the metaverse world and into the real world.”
Additionally, observers recommend ways for companies that develop solutions based on AI to enable these systems to use data without infringing on users’ privacy. For example, with learning data, “combining conflicting datasets in the machine learning process (adversarial learning) is a good option for distinguishing flaws and biases in the AI algorithm’s output,” according to a recent World Economic Forum article. Additionally, “There are also options for using synthetic data sets that do not use actual personal data.”
Companies also support legislation to increase consumer privacy, as explained in the following video.
New Regulations
Another contributing factor is regulatory changes that force tech companies to dial back their development. They include the following:
- GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was adopted by the EU in 2016. It requires companies to get the consent of users for data processing, anonymize collected data to protect privacy, provide data breach notifications, safely handle the transfer of data across borders, and appoint a data protection officer to oversee GDPR compliance.
- CCPA. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), adopted in 2018, also gives consumers more control over their personal information. The CCPA grants consumers the right to know about the personal information a business collects about them, including how it is used and shared, the right to delete personal information collected, the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and the right to non-discrimination in exercising their CCPA rights.Because so many companies do business globally, they must comply with the GDPR and the CCPA even if they are not located in Europe or California.
- Open banking. Open banking, the ability for banks to view transactions, supports better consumer protection, secures payments with strong authentication, and enables innovative services and products for financial services customers. This concept gives consumers more control over their data and a clearer view of their finances.
- PSD2. The Directive on Payment Services (PSD2) is another EU-driven policy that protects consumers by making card-not-present (CNP) payments safer and more secure.
Not All Boring
The tech industry, as a whole, may be focusing on less dynamic products. But that doesn’t mean exciting things aren’t going on. The following technologies are up and coming in the current environment:
- AI. There’s a reason news about AI is everywhere, and that is that AI is everywhere. Practical uses include personalizing the shopping experience, personalizing learning, getting help from virtual assistants, aiding educators, supporting autonomous vehicles, enhancing facial recognition, performing inventory management, finding and hiring new employees, improving agricultural practices, improving citizen safety, and making medical diagnoses. AI has many more potential uses not listed here.
- Blockchain. Blockchain supports many applications, including crypto, which reached peak volatility in 2022 when the market lost over $2 trillion. However, there are still practical uses for blockchain, including the potential for speeding up money transfers between banks, creating smart contracts, managing the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and more.
- Business analytics. Businesses can use analytics to get insights to help them make the best possible decisions based on reliable data. For example, organizations can determine things like the best place to open a new location, the 20 products that were the most popular last year or quarter, how many employees are needed for each shift, or the best time to purchase raw materials. This field is quickly growing because no company wants to be left behind when their competition uses business analytics insights to gain market share.
- Cloud computing. Running platforms, applications, and development environments in the cloud has become more common because the technology has advanced to a point where, for many companies, this option is more affordable, practical, and secure than hosting these services in-house. Cloud offerings give businesses the option to use only the bandwidth they need and to ramp up or ramp down use easily, as needed. Cloud services take care of hardware maintenance, and upgrades happen automatically.
- Metaverse. Meta’s metaverse, Horizon Worlds, isn’t progressing as quickly as some thought it would. However, it’s far from the only player on this field. The most successful metaverses so far are games like Fortnite and Roblox, with plenty of room for growth, especially in the areas of work, socializing, and shopping.
- Robots. The Wall Street Journal article states, “A new wave of more-capable and demonstrably useful robots is arriving, as technologies like machine learning and computer vision have matured.” Robots are being used for things like welding, hazardous material handling, machine tending, painting, assembly, and other manufacturing processes.
What Happens Next
The Wall Street Journal article stated, “During financial crises, belt-tightening leads to the rollout and broad adoption of existing but not yet widely used technologies…. Now is a time when companies are shifting their attitudes and strategy from ‘what can we do?’ to ‘what do we need to do?'” In other words, cutbacks can actually be good for companies in the long run as they discontinue unprofitable initiatives or even entire departments that aren’t contributing to the company’s overall health and longevity.
In the coming months and years, the world is likely to see existing technology that is truly useful—such as remote work tools like Zoom and Slack—continue to grow and improve. Meanwhile, additional players will undoubtedly come onto the scene, fine-tuning the market for consumers and businesses. Given that boring equals useful, it’s likely that boring tech will always be around, even when more exciting innovations appear.
Boring Is in the Eye of the Beholder
While tech companies themselves might be disheartened by the turn from flashy to humdrum, just about everyone else benefits:
- Investors like boring tech because it is the foundation of steady growth and stability. Additionally, they have an easier time finding truly promising startups at a time when fewer are entering the market.
- Consumers and businesses like boring tech because the products that are being developed are practical and serve them in various ways.
- Society benefits from boring tech because the innovations being developed now could be the foundation of more exciting things to come.
While it’s fun to think about the possibilities for technologies with a high wow factor, such as flying cars, many of the innovations that help us work and live our day-to-day lives are somewhat boring. While that designation has a negative connotation, consider a day without technologies that have become so essential that we forget to marvel at their usefulness. Innovations such as traffic lights, self-checkout machines, and smartphones may be boring, but they are the foundation of our lives.
