Lindy's effect and how to choose the right tool.

The Lindy’s effect states that for certain non-perishable things, the remaining life expectancy is proportional to their age. It’s sometimes referred to as Lindy’s law.

This law does not apply to things that are bounded by physical limitations such as lifeforms or mechanical objects.

Things that fall under the effect include ideas, religions, technologies and so on…

One spectacular example is how frequently JavaScript frameworks appear and disappear, compared to old technology, such as, say, the TCP protocol. The latter has been doing well for quite a long time (generations in tech age) and it will (speculatively) remain so.

The law got its name from a restaurant chain, the Lindy’s, where comedians gathered and predicted how long their shows would last. They found out that the more a comedian had been exposed on the medium, the longer the show would run. For a collection of things that obeys Lindy’s effect, life expectancies follow a power law.

The effect could come in handy in the case of having to make a tech choice: favor the older one, since it’s more likely to be popular and to receive more support and maintenance, thus fewer headaches.

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