Sam Altman from Y Combinator wrote a post asking a question. There he lists a bunch of technology that we use in our everyday lives and asks "What were you doing 10 years ago?"

[disclosure: In that list he's also namedropping 3 YC-backed companies, Reddit, Airbnb and Dropbox]. My first reaction was to just answer the question honestly, and it's a bit disappointing, because yes, I was using something.

Instead of talking on Whatsapp or Snapchat, I probably would have been chatting on MSN Messenger, or ICQ, or AIM. Turns out you could also send pictures and use your webcam on MSN.

Instead of going to the #hiphop subReddit, I would often hang out in other sub-communities and online forums, such as Generations FM forum about French rap, and I loved it.

Instead of Spotify, I was listening to CD albums that I would really listen to for weeks and for that reason I still irrationally love those songs to this day, more than the way I consume music now, which is often too fast and superficial. Online, there would be tons of platforms to download music illegally that I may or may not have used :) And even 15 years ago, Napster or Winamp were pretty good. The first version of Winamp was released 17 years ago…

Instead of Airbnb, I'd have to find a friend of a friend in that city and see if I could crash at their place. Or if they knew someone who could rent me an apartment. Or go to an hostel. A bit more work - but I guarantee I never slept in the streets.

Instead of Uber, I used public transportation. Or taxis if I really needed too.

Instead of looking at family-shared photos on Dropbox we would probably do so on Picasa. Or on a hard drive. There, I said it!

This response is not meant to sound bitter. Just trying to literally think about what I was using back then for the same use cases. In fact, thinking about those fundamental needs is a great exercise for any entrepreneur because generally - it's very hard to create needs. What humans want to do, how they want to get by, eat, communicate, share stuff… it's quite consistent over time. We're just improving these tools incrementally to be faster, better, stronger, but it's no break-through.