All laws

67Estimation

Amara's Law

Overestimated in the short run, underestimated in the long run.

If

A new technology is judged on a demo, which flatters it, and then adopted against an installed base, which resists it — so the first two years disappoint. The same compounding that made the early forecast wrong then runs for a decade in the other direction, and the ten-year forecast turns out to be wrong too, this time low.

Then

Discount two-year forecasts about a new technology and take ten-year ones seriously — but plan around the version that actually ships, not the one in the demo.

Unless

Some Things Simply Do Not Arrive — survivorship makes the law look inevitable, because the technologies that never got a long run are not the ones quoted back at us

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