When I was small, the Tidel Park in Chennai was the thing, it was the place where the brainy lived and great innovations happened. It was difficult to purchase a computer, they were expensive, desktops were bulky, you cannot move them like laptops, internet was expensive. All these means one thing, only expensive enterprises could buy them and it was they who can run IT companies.

Things changed, when I was in 3rd year of college I got a home computer, after sometime I got a dialup internet connection that connects via my phone line, it was provided by HCL. Then I progressed to BSNL and now I have direct fiber to my home offering about 5MB of download a second. That is in 250 seconds I can get a HD movie if all goes well.

Though those stuff looks impressive, they were done using cabling. This requires lot of manual work, lot of digging, stringing and connecting and so on. I’m in Chennai, which is an metro in India, think about Usilampatti, are we getting 24 hour power supply there? People over there enjoy a fiber connection? There will be at least 100’s of people who are more intelligent than me in Usilampatti, they can contribute to software better than me, but they are just there not getting power and not having internet and hence not practicing I.T as their profession. They must flee to a city, come out of their village comfort zone, brave an unknown, spend a lot for lodging, food, just to get started and keep going. If given the right tools they can code one tenth of my cost and still produce better software.

Suppose assume they get good quality power, which is still a miracle in India, they can buy a SpaceX receiver which is said to be a size of pizza box, this will connect to one of 12,000 satellites SpaceX is launching to provide the whole globe with Internet. Say that almost all people from that unconnected region get internet and they start to compete with me, then either I must improve my quality, reduce cost or something. The end product is better and cheaper software to the client.

I really envy and respect Elon musk and his vision. It’s good, great, grand and sometimes foolish. If Star Link, SpaceX plan to provide whole Earth internet goes by plan and possibly unhindered by politics and management, we can see a explosion of software development. I hope it succeeds soon.

I am happy the way tech is progressing. Before, only few powerful and rich can hold it and boast about it then, now almost all can do it because barrier of entry is decreasing rapidly. Very soon I feel I.T hubs concentrated at few points will make no sense; almost everyone can work from anywhere; even if one goes on camping all one needs to carry a solar power pack and this pizza box that will give you a SpaceX Star Link connection to the internet.

I think this myth of software developers are doing something great, and they must be seen as bigger than life too will disappear. During my Grandparents time, having a B.A or having some form of education was a big thing. Possibly even schooling was a big thing then. Those who knew to read and write were respected, look up to, and they earned more than average. Today you get Engineering or Doctor degree it’s no big deal. But starting and running a software company is seen as a big thing, but it isn’t. Once people start gaining knowledge and know about it, then thousands of new software companies and mostly importantly freelancers will pop up. That’s how the world should be, more democratic.