For example Amazon Kindle was not the first eReader. But its platform-ecosystem was years sooner than Barnes & Nobles Nook and Kindle won out.
Amazon itself is technically a "second mover" because there was an obscure online book shop before, but no one else from the established sales companies or Walmart could compete with them.
Tesla was not the first electric car. But it is arguably the first reaching a production of a million, so it is the first e-car from a "main" manufacturer?
In my life I've seen that happen a handful of times. When it does, it's usually due to (1) tragic management ineptitude over an extended period of time, or (2) fear of cannibalizing an existing profitable business (e.g.,: Kodak refusing to move from film to digital cameras, or the car industry being slow to re-invest away from ICE production.) I see no evidence (yet) that AI-enhanced search is going to threaten Google's core business of "displaying ads on relevant search results", so the main risk here is long-term management failure. Right now Google's management is doing everything it can to signal (to shareholders and partners) that they're going to throw every resource they have at the problem.
> better design, cheaper price, better range, better reliability
That doesn't mean the first mover advantage doesn't exist.
They are trapped by the decisions they made as first movers, while later incumbents have freedom to create improvements without worry about the installed base.
Apple is one company that never seemed to fall into that trap. They just tell the installed base “fuck you, buy the new thing” and somehow get away with it.
Apple comes in and innovates against something that existed but was user hostile.
It actually did happen to Apple over a long enough horizon, they cornered the paid digital music market by perfecting it, and upended it, and didn't innovate/upend again, and along came Spotify to upend it for them.
We're still in that phase phase of both Tesla and Bing AI.
I'll be their paying customer soon. It would be great if that meant I had privacy as well, but I kinda bleakly realize that that might be a bit of a pipe dream.
The goal posts also aren't "search" they're "AI enhanced search", let's not muddy the waters by moving them. Google may certainly be dominating in search, but they are clearly trying to sprint from miles behind in the latter.
Remember how much trouble Microsoft got into for having a basic monopoly on desktops with Windows, and trying to bundle Internet Explorer? Replace Windows with Standard Google, and Internet Explorer with AI-based Google Search. You'll cut Google off at the knees with that move. And even if they survive the ~4-5 years litigation, they'll be severely hampered, kind of like how Microsoft was with the mobile phone market.
I think they'll ultimately have to open up the charging to get federal funding, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when they do. It's definitely a massive advantage right now.
