I think one thing is disruption the other is unprofitable disruption. Newer better ways of doing things is great. The problem is when Uber & Amazon disrupt the old ways with cheap capital and unprofitable prices. Once the old shops/taxis have died they can raise prices. That isn't fair.
The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
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Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#22Disruption is nothing new; it's been happening for millennia. I think the pace of modern disruption is much faster than in the past -- but IMO this has more to do with global population levels. Technology was an enabler here, but really what we've seen is that world population has grown so much that formerly "niche" markets are now quite viable simply based on sheer numbers. A higher number of viable niche markets means more adjacent markets to try to disrupt bigger markets from, leading to a constant cycle of disruption.
In many senses, "disruptive" simply means "a greater share of revenue goes to the shareholders". This allows "disruptive" companies to win in price-competitive markets, but it has the side effect of consolidating economic wins in single layer of the economy at a macro level. Advances in capital finance without accompanying advances in worker protections led to this; but again, thanks to the population mentioned above, there's not exactly a worker shortage and thus no pressure for worker protections from the political class.
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#23Also, "changing the world". Sorry, your messaging app isn't doing that.
Right. Messaging apps like Twitter didn't change the world.
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#24From the article:
>These founders who actually have disrupted industries and markets were not grandiose when they started out.
They did not appear grandiose from the outside. But the founders were very ambitious. With Newmark as an exception among the mentioned examples.
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#25Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#26Also, "changing the world". Sorry, your messaging app isn't doing that.
Right. Messaging apps like Twitter didn't change the world.
I didn't target Twitter or WhatsApp or any other app. Sure, some did. But most of the startups that say they "change the world" use the phrase very casually.
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
If WhatsApp didn't change the world, what did?
it's neither the first nor the last chat app, i believe - so how would you say the world changed? (note that i don't use whatsapp and am not all that familiar with it. mostly i'm aware of it due to an interest in erlang.)
Some ways in which WhatsApp changed the world, based on my first hand experience:
- many of my family members, especially in developing world, bought a smartphone solely as a reason to be on WhatsApp. Nothing convinced them before to buy one. Once they had it, they discovered other awesome uses of a smartphone and are part of the "mobile revolution"(TM). That alone should qualify for "changing the world".
- no one I know uses SMS anymore (again, developing countries). A great change given the price gouging before (and Americans probably won't understand that if you haven't seen it first hand).
- Amount of "support" happening on WhatsApp in the broader economy - (eg. booking a taxi, ordering home delivery from corner grocery store etc - which needed a phone call before and was not as smooth as WhatsApp experience)
- hyper-sharing of casual moments in life. I know, I know - there was facebook and picasa and whatnot before that and instagram/snap these days, but amount of photo sharing that happens on WhatsApp is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than what came before or other channels (again, developing countries), simply because WhatsApp made it super simple to share compared to predecessors and is ubiquitous compared to other contemporaries.
It should also be noted that WhatsApp needed two big giant shoulders to stand upon:
- android and affordable phones (sorry, iPhone simply doesn't cut the deal for the masses)
- 2G / 3G spectrum and data connectivity
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#28The original brainstorm/paper for Amazon was "the everything store." He started with books and planned to expand in to everything... so yea he actually did set out to disrupt the whole industry.
Is it the fact that they don't say what they're thinking? Or that they didn't "honestly think" their companies would disrupt industries?
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#29Also, "changing the world". Sorry, your messaging app isn't doing that.
Even if it is, there's something that rubs me the wrong way about that little SV mantra. First, the banal arrogance of it, but more importantly, the purposelessness of it—we just want to be responsible for making our mark, not to make the world better or push it in any particular direction, but just to point and say, "look, I had that effect!"
Re: The problem, really, is this thing called “disruption”
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
If WhatsApp didn't change the world, what did?
it's neither the first nor the last chat app, i believe - so how would you say the world changed? (note that i don't use whatsapp and am not all that familiar with it. mostly i'm aware of it due to an interest in erlang.)
No VOIP system before Whatsapp reached the threshold of general usability for the unwashed masses (a complex matter conflating voice quality, software distribution, contact discovery, network effect, data usage, resilience, system load etc.). Facebook and Viber came close but failed.
Before Whatsapp, my friends in various African countries and their correspondents spent sometimes hundreds of Euros a month in voice communications. After Whatsapp: zero. It happened overnight.
Quite a few chat applications worked as well, but one cannot overstate how radically Whatsapp has changed international voice for users and telcos alike. That is not just success in entertainment but a significant social impact.