My dad worked nights at John Deere as a machinist—for 44 years. Most mornings as I would be getting ready for school, he’d just be getting home. I looked forward to eating oatmeal and toast together, before my mom would remind me to finish packing my lunch, or to take care of a chore I had put off until the last minute.
Times were simple in the early and mid-90s because we didn’t have the internet—especially in Middle America. Which meant fewer things were accessible in real time. Which meant fewer predictions could be made. Which made it harder to know the future.
Today, I think we’re seeing the biggest shift in my 37 years on this planet, when it comes to knowing the future.
First, we must understand how new technologies often create new markets, and those new markets show us the future.
Example 1:
My first experience in video/calling software was Skype.
I had friends from all over the world who were playing Magic: The Gathering Pro Tours. We’d often discuss the best decks and playtest across Skype, ahead of competitions. It allowed us to stay ahead of 99% of other players, and to know the future in what decks would do the best.
Skype was so convenient that it ended up impacting another market that you may not have thought about—airlines. Some businesses had fewer employee needs for business travel. Some grandparents stopped flying as often as they would to see their grandkids.
A new market showed us the future.
Example 2:
I remember as a kid going to my local comic and gaming store, to buy a couple packs of the brand new 1994 Fleer Ultra X-Men set. I ripped open the packs while a couple store patrons watched. I ended up pulling a rare Wolverine card—I was offered $10 on the spot for it, which I declined. That was the only offer in the local market that I received.
Flash forward 10 years (2004 is when I set up my eBay account), and I was selling and buying cards on eBay. You could sell any card on eBay. The new global market of eBay helped me understand global prices. Local prices were almost always lagging (for better and worse).
Flash forward another 20 years (today), and you have the phenomenon, whatnot (fellow Y Combinator company). Whatnot creators have a global audience. And while global market prices on collectibles are readily available and accessible to all, whatnot has created a new market with added dopamine, which has completely upended those prices. People pay a premium to have packs opened for them on the livestream. People gamble with (mostly) Minus Expected Value (-EV) odds at pull games, knowing that if they beat the odds, they’ll forever have that video clip to share with friends.
With those premiums, a new market has emerged that supports creators paying retail prices on collectibles and still making margins.
A new market showed us the future.
TODAY
Most people still rely on the legacy media companies for their news. But Twitter/X has now come along and surpassed those media companies in how/where news breaks first. Why? Simply because anyone is now able to publish content, and Community Notes can verify it, all faster than the legacy media companies can source it, schedule it, or print it.
X > legacy media for news. Look at where President Biden first mentioned he wouldn’t run for reelection.
But if you think this is a new market showing us the future, you’re wrong. There is something > X.
Enter prediction market platforms, with the current best example being Polymarket.
Polymarket is a blockchain-based betting market, which covers everything from politics to crypto, to a current bet I’m tracking, “Will Deadpool & Wolverine gross > $200m on opening weekend?”
You may think it’s just a crypto or degen betting site, but it’s reached a point in time with a large enough user base, that its predictions have started to prove true, before the news is confirmed/breaks on X.
Right now, I think 90% of people rely on legacy media.
9.9% of people rely on X.
.1% currently rely on Polymarket.
This is a point in history where a new market is showing us the future.
Adapt accordingly.