How Does a Poor Economy Affect Tech Innovation?

sshuber writes "It's no secret that the US and other parts of the world are currently having some economic problems. How is this affecting new technologies under development? With the large numbers of layoffs, are we seeing projects, such as things under R&D, that are being axed? Are companies playing it safe and sticking with what they know sells in lieu of pushing the envelope? Finally, how is this affecting the open source community, either positively or negatively?" A lot of open source work happens with the backing or at least the sufferance of corporations. Do laid-off tech workers contribute fewer cycles to open source projects, or more?

Comments

Re:When I was looking for a job...

[r_jensen11]

Sorry, but the US is not currently a poor economy. It hasn't been since *at least* the Great Depression. Sure, the unemployment rate is higher than it was a few years ago and the economy is not growing at the rate that it did in the 90's.

BUT THE US DOES NOT HAVE A POOR ECONOMY!!!

If you want to take a look at some poor economies, look at most of Africa. Look at most of the countries in Latin & South America. Look at basically any country that the Peace Corps is sending volunteers to. Those are poor economies .

What the US is experiencing right now is a corrective swing which is a result of natural economic cycles, and is being exacerbated by actions taken years ago, like ultra-low interest rates and tax cuts, which acted like an extra dosage of caffeine or adrenaline. Inevitable result: whatever receives this shot is going to grow tired and crash. Instead of it being you while studying for finals, it's the US economy. But, nonetheless, the US economy is NOT POOR , and nor will it be until its unemployment rate is into the double digits, banks foreclose on a massive scale, &c.

Re:Is It Really A Poor Economy?

[homer_s]

Jeez - way to miss the point. Use gold units if that helps you understand.

Re:Is It Really A Poor Economy?

[flyingsquid]

I get a few NPR shows on podcast, one of them being This American Life. They did a rather interesting episode recently that connects the human elements of the housing crisis drama- the people taking out mortgages, the brokers selling them, the Wall Street guys buying them up and turning them into securities. It's a collaboration between This American Life's typical quirky human drama thing, and NPR's news team, and they do a good job of explaining what's going on. I would highly recommend giving it a listen (http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355; it's #355, "The Giant Pool of Money".

In short, the collapse of the housing market destroyed trillions of dollars. Nobody knows how much was destroyed, exactly. And nobody is entirely sure what the long-term effect is going to be, but the short-term effect has been that people are becoming afraid to lend money, and if you can't borrow money, then our economic system doesn't work so well.