The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
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Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#2Mods: Please put (2010) in the title.
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#3Ten years later... it's still very true :)
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#4> Disruptive technologies are dismissed as toys because when they are first launched they “undershoot” user needs. The first telephone could only carry voices a mile or two. The leading telco of the time, Western Union, passed on acquiring the phone because they didn’t see how it could possibly be useful to businesses and railroads – their primary customers. What they failed to anticipate was how rapidly telephone technology and infrastructure would improve (technology adoption is usually non-linear due to so-called complementary network effects). The same was true of how mainframe companies viewed the PC (microcomputer), and how modern telecom companies viewed Skype. (Christensen has many more examples in his books).
Skype feels like a bad examples it was always fairly obvious video chat would be prevalent eventually. It was never obvious that Skype was the best answer, and there were Skype alternatives with similar offerings which have failed.
Skype itself may not last the long run if it can’t keep up with zoom or whatnot.
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#5>The reason big new things sneak by incumbents is that the next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a “toy.” This is one of the main insights of Clay Christensen’s “disruptive technology” theory. This theory starts with the observation that technologies tend to get better at a faster rate than users’ needs increase.
Or perhaps new technologies are solutions in search of a problem, and without any concrete sense of self and hierarchy, user "needs" can get artificially inflated to infinity...
Kind of how people "needed" cigarettes in 1950, and "needed" bell bottoms in the 70s, and "need" a good smartphone camera today (because of course they also "need" to broadcast to their friends and everybody else what they ate for dinner, their latest selfie, and their life 24/7) -- even if nobody on the receiving end really cares, except perhaps their parents and grandparents...
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#6Here’s a more full account of the Western Union and Bell settlement on patent infringement-
http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--wes...
I’m also generally skeptical of revisionist narratives. People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predict these things. The hard part is building them and then creating a system (eg financed hardware) to create widespread adoption.
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#7This did not hold up well, imo. Not sure how to count it but by some lists this is stuff like: Tencent, Alibaba, Amazon, Netflix, Priceline, Baidu, Salesforce.com, JD.com.
Others would include Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, GitHub, ...
There are only a few that would qualify that I can think of - Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.
If folks here have other examples or thoughts on why this does or doesn't hold true would love to hear them.
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#8Mods: Please put (2010) in the title.
Fixed!
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#9[deleted]
Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
#10Here’s a more full account of the Western Union and Bell settlement on patent infringement- http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--wes... I’m also generally skeptical of revisionist narratives. People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predi…
This went by on HN a week or so ago: https://www.gwern.net/Timing I tend to agree, the problem isn't seeing what's coming exactly (though that is non-trivial). The problem is the timing.