I remember back in the 1990's when the Internet was pretty new and we had to use dial-up to access it, and it was amazingly slow. As a software developer, I remember trying to find websites and it was a pain. So a few programmers I worked with sat down and wrote a couple of what we called HTTP mappers. The idea was simple. Using HTTP and VB3, we hit a few websites and programmatically and parse the HTML code look for other URLs and store them, the recursively search those. From there we could track every link to another website and log it. It was fun. We were building our own search engines but didn't know it at the time. This was about 8 years before Google was started.
In about 1995 I remember taking some college classes and getting really annoyed with the cost of books. So, I contacted a few publishers to see what it would take to create my own online book store. I came to learn most of the profits were made by the publisher and not by the bookstore. Any savings I could offer clients by discounting bookstore prices and not having to charge taxes, was quickly eaten up with shipping costs. So to my disappointment, I could not figure out how to make an online bookstore work as a business. This was about the same year that Amazon was founded.
I'm sure you have similar stories. You thought about an idea and couldn't figure out how to make it work as a business. Maybe you didn't have the knowledge or funds to get it going, maybe it was just a thought in passing. But later, someone else did it and you remembered coming up with the same idea years before.
I'm sure you thought about things like, what if I went back 10, 20, 25 years ago and could see the potential of the Internet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Bit Coin, etc. Let me let you in a something, we are about to see another one.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is about to explode. Actually, it already has. We are seeing massive investments in AI, electric cars, 3D printing, and many other emerging technologies. But IoT is outpacing them all in regards to investment. I think this is a sign that tells us that it will be a "next big thing". Knowing what we know, sitting where we sit, what can be do today to take advantage of knowing this is about to explode? How can we build products, business, services, etc. to be in a forefront position in the next 5 to 10 years?
The IoT revolution is coming. In the next 5, 10, 20, 25 years, everything you use, touch, buy, rent, etc. is going to be wired. Microcontrollers, FPGAs, and mini-computers will drive this technology. Learning embedded development and microcontrollers now will give you the opportunity to invest in this technology. Now is the time to start investing in your skills and knowledge to find and take advantage of this world-changing innovations. All of our lives are about to change with IoT. Your first step is educating yourself and understanding what this movement is all about.
What can we learn from history?
Don't get stuck on one platform. We don't know if any of the existing ones are going to last. So don't pick up Raspberry PI and focus on nothing else, don't pick up Arduino and focus on nothing else. Learn a little about each of them but become an expert at a few. I'd recommend learning microcontroller development using Arduino, ESP32, ATMega328, PIC, Meadow F7, and expand in ARM development and FPGAs as you gain some experience.
If you enjoy electronics and want to dig into digital logic, you really need to dig into FPGAs. Without going into too much detail, the point is that FPGAs take software and convert it to hardware in just a few seconds. They are chips designed for this purpose and we are seeing things like AI and graphics processing lean on FPGAs for acceleration, as they are many times faster than the equivalent software implementation. While they are not a perfect fit in every case, they are wonderful at parallel processing. Take a little time to come up to speed on FPGAs and add them to your toolbelt.
Educating yourself
Invest in your basic electronic education. To take microcontrollers beyond copying simple project examples, you need to have some basic electronic knowledge. To know which components to use, how to build your own boards, and how to design circuits, you need to invest in that foundation. You should also move beyond the basics and learn ICs like the 555 timer, or the LM393 comparator, logic gates, etc. Then move into microcontrollers and minicomputers like Arduino and Raspberry PI. But don't step there, take a look at the ESP32, Wilderness Labs Meadow F7 (.Net/Mono embedded microcontroller development), and Parallax's Propeller, then spend some time with FPGAs.
I'm hoping to giving you a little glance into the future. What you do with it, that is up to you. But I believe that once you have a foundation is understanding electronics, microcontrollers, and IoT, you'll start to see the potential and opportunities in IoT that are coming.