Mobile is eating the world

Earlier this year I wrote a post (Why you should consider going mobile) where I laid out the reasoning behind our decision to go mobile-first and what benefits we think that gives to our customers.

Last week, a talk that I had watched before, resurfaced in my feeds. The talk is given by Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans), a technologist working at a16z (Andreessen Horowitz in its long form). a16z is a prominent top tier tech investor located in the US. They spend a lot of time thinking and reasoning about the future, trying to foresee big shifts in tech and in our society.

The talk is called “Mobile is eating the world”, or in its later incarnations "Mobile: It Changes Everything". The first version of the title is a reference to famous a statement that Marc Andreessen, one of the founders of a16z, said back in 2011; “Software is eating the world”.

I wanted to highlight it because I think that the picture painted by Evans is a picture of profound change and something that we all need to pay attention to. As a tech business this obviously goes for us here at Roombler. But, as Evans says in the talk, tech has outgrown tech, i.e these changes apply to all type of business, including the accommodation business.

Chances are you have seen articles that say "you must go mobile", or "x% of bookings are now made from mobile devices". This talk gives you a bit of background to why this is and a deeper understanding of why you should care.

The talk is about 25 minutes long and although maybe given from a somewhat high level of abstraction, with lots of number and statistics, I think it's absolutely worth watching. Enjoy!