I think analyses like these are motivated reasoning. In 2000, I'm sure you could have said that after infrastructure costs the internet, and the web, added "basically zero" to US economic growth. And there were people saying that!

Someone I deeply respect, Clifford Stollm wrote a book called “Silicon Snake Oil — Second thoughts on the information highway" in 1995. And while he was and is a brilliant person, Stoll was wrong.

Smart people are terrible at predicting the most consequential changes in our future – even when they're familiar with the technology. I wrote a bit about my thesis why here, https://1517.substack.com/p/inside-v-outside-context-problem...

Don't make his mistake. Don't look away from the change being wrought. The world has changed and our history now has a new, sharp dividing chapter "Before ChatGPT | After ChatGPT"

and that chapter will go down right next to "Before Trinity | After Trinity"; "Before PC | After PC"; "Before 'Internet' | After 'Internet'"†

† Yes, I know I'm referring to the Web. But we're still using the dark fiber from the .com boom.