In 2023, the layoffs continued, with many high-profile companies letting many people go. There is a need to make money now, so businesses are (rightly) focused on revenue.
I see dependence on the government on the rise, either more people getting government jobs or jobs where the government is their biggest customer.
Democrats are becoming everything they told you Trump was. They are 'saving democracy' by dictating who you are allowed to vote for.
Ideological institutional capture peaked in 2022, and you have now started to see it turn over. No example exemplifies this more than Ivy League institutions and the clear harm DEI policies have caused there. The downfall of higher education is moving quickly.
Alternative media grew a lot in 2023. More and more people find the mainstream media far too biased. Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter helped this out a lot.
AI was a HUGE winner in 2023. It started to become a regular in my daily routine. Every app started to market an AI component.
Freedom tech
The lightning network has made significant strides, and the growth is steady but still very slow. Unfortunately, the lightning network may be years away from solving the problems I would like to see it solve.
Bitcoin is out of the doldrums of the bear market and showing teeth. We are officially in the 'and then they fight you' stage, encompassed by Elizabeth Warren and co, who are trying to ban it.
High-fee environments were a theme in 2023 for Bitcoin and have highlighted Layer 1's scalability issues. Lightning has been a benefactor of this.
Nostr had significant organic growth, and the app ecosystem has improved tremendously. The growth is still only organic, though, and there is not that 'killer app' that got adoption outside of bitcoiners.
Tether has shown to be a fan favorite in the global south, much more so than Bitcoin in its current state.
2024 Predictions
General
Democrats' attempt to stifle democracy, I think, will likely put Trump in the Whitehouse. If not, some real sketchy stuff would need to happen to keep him out.
People will continue to wake up to ideologically captured institutions and the harm they are doing. DEI will be the main loser in this.
I expect independent and alternative media to continue to grow as people's trust in legacy media declines.
As interest rates start to come down, I expect public markets and IPOs specifically to heat up.
AI and LLMs will continue to move at a rapid rate that will continue to increase productivity. It is niche to use Bard today, and I expect it to become more common for people to default to that (and apps like it) rather than go to Google search.
Freedom Tech
I expect 2024 to bring more institutions to Bitcoin. For now, it has only been Microstrategy. I wouldn't be surprised to see another large company or nation-state place a bet. The ETF should help this a lot. I expect this to bring a new all-time high to Bitcoin. – With this being said, I do not expect the attack on self-sovereignty to stop.
Lightning will make improvements but will still be used primarily as a means of acquiring Bitcoin. The tools will likely improve, but it won't be as big as we'd like.
Nostr will continue to grow, and we will start to see new companies sprouting up, leveraging the network effects of an existing network and not having to create it themselves. Hopefully, we will see other use cases outside social media (and Twitter) manifest—things like flare.pub. I hope that in 2024, we can see the first app that brings non-bitcoiners to the network.
I expect to see stable-coin-specific regulations, specifically regulations that will be good for stables.
I hope decentralized AI can make a name for itself in 2024 to relieve concerns about captured LLMs from the big players.