It has accelerated considerably in the last 10 years, though. I was in grad school in 1999-2000, I started putting my apps on the web, but the infrastructure wasn't quite as sophisticated or inexpensive as it is now. I considered my apps "demos" to show interested people and hopefully gain some interest, but not something that could be "real".
In retrospect, I realize now that they absolutely could have been "real", I just didn't quite get it. This simple realization is also a huge factor, and more young people seem to be realizing it than ever before. I remember pg pointed out in an essay that when you open the cage door to an animal that has been in captivity for a long time, it takes a while for it to realize it can come and go.
I'd say both technology and pure social adjustment to change have both been factors in the last 10 years. While I could have gotten server space and made my apps real in 2000 (and plenty of people certainly did!), it is easier now from a technical and cost perspective than it was a 10-15 years ago.
But the biggest change may be social and just have a lot to do with latency - a higher percentage of young graduate people with very little to lose are now aware that they don't need permission to create and release an app simply because it takes a while for social patterns to shift after a technical breakthrough (and this sort of thing can spread like a (benign!) virus, really picking up steam). This, combined with a considerable drop in price and increase of availability, could qualify a kind of paradigm shift, even if the technology has only changed by degree.
I agree. I made my first "mobile app" in 2002 - a cell phone remote control for Winamp - but there was no obvious route to monetization at the time, so I gave it away for free. Today, competition notwithstanding, I could just throw it up on an app store, and watch the purchases roll in.
In retrospect, I realize now that they absolutely could have been "real", I just didn't quite get it. This simple realization is also a huge factor, and more young people seem to be realizing it than ever before. I remember pg pointed out in an essay that when you open the cage door to an animal that has been in captivity for a long time, it takes a while for it to realize it can come and go.
I'd say both technology and pure social adjustment to change have both been factors in the last 10 years. While I could have gotten server space and made my apps real in 2000 (and plenty of people certainly did!), it is easier now from a technical and cost perspective than it was a 10-15 years ago.
But the biggest change may be social and just have a lot to do with latency - a higher percentage of young graduate people with very little to lose are now aware that they don't need permission to create and release an app simply because it takes a while for social patterns to shift after a technical breakthrough (and this sort of thing can spread like a (benign!) virus, really picking up steam). This, combined with a considerable drop in price and increase of availability, could qualify a kind of paradigm shift, even if the technology has only changed by degree.