App boom: Why 2019 could be the year of another technology bubble crash

It is only a matter of time before the app bubble bursts. Falling shares of the big tech companies is indicative of markets losing faith in even the established tech corps to achieve their forecasts

When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 it sent significant numbers of businesses to the wall. Investment banks had been encouraging enormous investment in dot-com ventures by launching Initial Public Offers (IPOs) allowing investors and entrepreneurs to cash in on vast fortunes by selling off shares in their companies.

Most of the dot-coms which listed on stock exchanges had done little more than consume vast amounts of investor cash and showed little prospect of achieving a profit. Traditional metrics of performance were overlooked and big spending was seen as a sign of rapid progress.

The cash burn was to