Why I’d Leave the Web Industry: It’s hard to excel

It’s been brewing a while, but I’m really dissatisfied with the Web industry at a personal level. Don’t read this post as saying that I’m going to quit all my work in this field. I’m not.. as such.

The Web industry has become a crap shoot

Once upon a time, hardly anyone cared about software development, or even the Internet. In those times, both software and the Internet had almost as many capabilities and benefits as now, but the number of developers and companies producing solutions was small. It was easy to excel. It was much harder to develop products and services, but it was easier to profit once you’d climbed the learning curve. In 2007 it’s too easy to come up with an idea and immediately find several good implementations, and if there’s no competition.. then you have to seriously wonder if there’s a business behind that idea because inventing new markets is a crap shoot best left to those with the resources (but a very lucrative crap shoot none-the-less).

I see the current technology (and especially Web) industry heading rapidly toward the model popularized by the gaming industry recently. Studios of geniuses with good funding pumping out high value products of varying quality, with a small ‘indie’ underclass making slim pickings on the side. The Web industry, in particular, has reached a point of saturation where soft benefits override technology benefits. It’s becoming about the marketing, support, the experience, and the connections rather than the technology. This is a sign of a maturing industry, but one where technology is becoming a form of commodity. It’s still exciting to mess around with commodities if you work at Google or in Yahoo’s new Brickhouse thinktank backed with a healthy cushion in case of a hard landing, but the tide is rapidly heading out at the fringes of the market.

Don’t get me wrong. There will be lots more ’small’ successes to come, but it’s definitely a crap shoot now. Pure determination and skill could win 9 times out of 10 in this industry once, but no longer.

If you can’t excel in an industry, should you leave it?

I suffer from what I have only recently discovered is a problem.. the bright child syndrome. This is where a child who’s reasonably smart is praised to a point where they put themselves on a pedestal and expect to be able to master and be a success in everything they turn their hand to. When they don’t, rather than accept failure, they merely shift into areas where they can excel. I acknowledge this, and have learned to be humble in the areas I suck. That said, I’ve come to realize that I can’t be anywhere near the top of this industry, so perhaps I should be looking for somewhere I can excel. I’d rather excel at what I do rather than get rich at it.

Of course, not everyone can excel, and it’d be pure idiocy to think that everyone should change careers because they’re not in the 95th percentile. If they did, industry would disappear and we’d be living in Idiocracy. However, we’re all different and many of us are happy enough to be happy in what we do. Many even hate their jobs but enjoy a great life out of work. Whatever. After some deliberation, I’ve realized I’m not any of those people and I can’t get joy out of merely being good or financially successful, and would rather be able to retire one day as a respected expert in my field even if my lifestyle is modest. This is not going to happen in the Web industry. So.. where?

That’s the subject of the next post.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under General, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.