Anthony Kalamut (Southside AdGuy)
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2022–2026
2:33 · 84K views · May 18, 2021
A look at AT&T's 1993 You Will ad campaign, which showed technologies such as video calls and telemedicine that were then under development. It explains the story behind ads that anticipated much of today's technology.
Cited as a prescient example of predicting the future, though AT&T did not deliver it.
4 comments from Hacker News
It used to be that you wouldn't be aware of what is going on in RU-net [1] or PTT [2] because you simply were not a Russian speaker or you weren't someone living in Taiwan speaking Chinese (yes modern Taiwanese people use a CLI app to login to a BBS in 2025, you can also do this with a web browser but where is the fun in that). So you simply were unaware that they even existed probably or if you do, you are like me and can only kind of speak Russian and get some of the memes, or you simply know about PTT because your Taiwanese friend told you about it. But now, everything is bifurcated within languages because there is orders of magnitude more content being generated and that content is algorithmically delivered to your eyes and ears based on your interactions with whatever platform you use (e.g., instagram, reddit) and maybe even across multiple platforms. So you likely don't see anything related to Kim Kardashian because you aren't flipping channels anymore through what is essentially "static" content. Instead you are scrolling a feed designed for you and you have never indicated you wanted to keep up with the Kardashians based on what you like and dislike in your feed. And so I think this bifurcation is combined with this kind of oily, artificial interactions you are talking about, and that makes the internet feel dead. Because the second you have a live experience, like going to a jazz bar without your phone and just hanging out and listening, everything feels so alive an
This comment thread started when you pushed back against someone who said: > when it comes right down to core "mind blowing" new tech, how much have we actually improved on 1994? You provided examples of core ideas that you thought did not exist in 1994, I showed you how several of them absolutely did. If I had to make a list of core technologies that didn't exist in 1994, it might consist of things like CRISPR-Cas9, deep neural networks, electronic cigarettes, self-driving cars, personalized genetics, artificial meat. Stuff that had either not been conceived of or required technology that didn't exist at the time. Even then, you can find precursors to all of those things since tech development is path-dependent. But seriously, dynamic websites and online social communities and the like existed then :) As for smartphones there's a pretty clear lineage that includes early bag phones, pagers, primitive handhelds, Nokia bricks, The Danger Hiptop/Sidekick, Blackberry, and so on. Check out this ad campaign from 1993[0]: [0]: AT&T - 1993 "You Will" Ad Campaign this video
A possible catalyst might have been the 1993 AT&T "You Will" Ad Campaign. It was very prescient but also the joke is that the commercials ended with "and the company that will bring it to you will be AT&T", which did not pan out in the ways that ad campaign thought. this video
To your point, AT&T's "You Will" commercials started airing in 1993 and present both an optimistic and fairly accurate view of what the future would look like. this video