"Y2K," or 1/1/2000, was 25 years ago today. Dire predictions of how bad the Y2K Bug might be, with the failure of computing systems leading to widespread disruption, did not manifest. NPR chose what has become the dominant framing, a cynical take that Y2K was overblown and a delusional over-reaction. A nothingburger.
It is easy to see why one might believe this. Since 1/1/2000 we have lived through a seemingly neverending series of grift bubbles: the dot-com bust, subprime mortgages, cryptocurrencies, etc. It is easy to assume that Y2K was surely similar, a cynical hype cycle enabling some kind of profiteering.
Y2K Spending
To be clear: money was spent. Y2K remediation wasn't just some developers combing through COBOL, as is often depicted. It was more cost effective to simply replace a lot of computing systems from the 1970s and 1980s with something more modern.
Development of the modern Internet was accelerated by Y2K spending. The new systems were usually Windows Server or some form of Unix, with TCP/IP and robust networking built in. Businesses in many industries, their upgrade cycle moved up to meet Y2K demands, could make their service available on the Internet years earlier than they otherwise would have. I think we can even see it in the oft-cited productivity gains of the late 1990s.
Yet all of that effort and all of that spending wasn't in service to a fake grift. It worked. We fixed it. We actually fixed it. It is perhaps difficult to comprehend from our vantage point in 2025, but we faced a large problem and we solved it with a correspondingly large effort.
The Ozone Hole
We will digress for a moment to a different topic which might not seem related, but is: the Ozone Hole of the 1970s and 1980s. It is another formerly big problem which seems to have gone away — not entirely solved as the hole is still there, but the ozone layer is recovering. A common reaction is to question whether it was overhyped.
A lot of people put in a lot of effort for a lot of years replacing chemicals which caused most of the damage to the ozone. Money and political capital were spent: every nation on Earth ratified the Montreal Protocol mandating the phasing out of CFC manufacture.
It worked. We fixed it.
Why Not Now
The important discussion is not whether large challenges of the past were somehow not large challenges. The important discussion is why we have been unable to rise to similar challenges now.
- Climate change is everywhere but we're still debating whether it will be so bad and equivocating on what to do.
- Covid-19 should have led to HVAC retrofits to improve indoor air quality but it instead empowered antivaxers to rip people's masks off.
Within living memory we have risen to challenges requiring the whole world to cooperate, a feat which seems impossible now.
- Then, the forces uniting us had the most effective means of coordination and of broadcasting their message: the UN and governmental coordination, and a mass media which created a shared reality.
- Today, the forces dividing us have the most effective means of coordination and broadcasting their message: online social media and an entirely separate infosphere.