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0 pointswewewedxfgdf6mo ago0 comments

>> Is there somehow a glaring vulnerability/missed opportunity in modern capitalism that billions of people somehow haven't discovered yet?

Absolutely with 150% certainty yes, and probably many. The www started April 30, 1993, facebook started February 4, 2004 - more than ten years until someone really worked out how to use the web as a social connection machine - an idea now so obvious in hindsight that everyone probably assumes we always knew it. That idea was simply left lying around for anyone to pick up and implement rally fropm day one of the WWW. Innovation isn't obvious until it arrives. So yes absolutely the are many glaring opportunities in modern capitalism upon which great fortunes are yet to be made, and in many cases by little people, not big companies.

>> if so, is a random startup founder or 'little guy' going to be the one to discover and exploit it somehow? If so, why wouldn't OpenAI or Anthropic etc get there first given their resources and early access to leading technology?

I don't agree with your suggestion that the existing big guys always make the innovations and collect the treasure.

Why did Zuckerberg make facebook, not Microsoft or Google?

Why did Gates make Microsoft, not IBM?

Why did Steve and Steve make Apple, not Hewlett Packard?

Why did Brin and Page make Google - the worlds biggest advertising machine, not Murdoch?

0 comments

lubujackson6mo ago

There's a lot that goes into it. Before Facebook was Friendster. Which failed spectacularly because they tried to have some sort of n-squared graph of friends that took thw whole thing down. What FB got right in the early days was it didn't crash. We take that for granted now in the age of cloud everything.

Also, there was Classmates.com. A way for people to connect with old friends from high school. But it was a subscription service and few people were desperate enough to pay.

So it's wasn't just the idea waiting around but idea with the right combination of factors, user-growth on the Internet, etc.

And don't forget Facebook's greatest innovation - requiring a .edu email to register. This happened at a time when people were hesitant to tie their real world personas with the scary Internet, and it was a huge advantage: a great marketing angle, a guarantee of 1-to-1 accounts to people, and a natural rate limiter of adoption.

wewewedxfgdfOP6mo ago

There's always a trail of competitors who almost got the magic formula right, but for some feature or luck or timing or money or something.

The giant win comes from many stars aligning. Luck is a factor - it's not everything but it plays a role - luck is the description of when everything fell into place at just the right time on top of hard work and cleverness and preparedness.

Google Search <-- AltaVista, Lycos, Yahoo

Facebook <-- MySpace, Friendster

iPod <-- MP3 players (Rio, Creative)

iPhone <-- BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile

Minecraft <-- Infiniminer

Amazon Web Services <-- traditional hosting

Windows (<-- Mac OS (1984), Xerox PARC

Android <-- Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm

YouTube <-- Vimeo, DailyMotion

Zoom <-- WebEx, Skype, GoToMeeting

awesome_dude6mo ago

Before iPods and iPhones, people thought that those spaces were "solved" and there was no room for "innovation"

mp3 players were commodity items, you could buy one for a couple of dollars, fill it up with your favourite music format (stolen) and off you went.

Phones too - Crackberry was the epitome of sophistication, and technological excellence.

Jobs/Apple didn't create anything "new" in those spheres, instead he added desireability, fancy UX that caught peoples' attentions

c226mo ago

Not a guarantee. I used to find abandoned .edu mailing lists so I could create accounts at arbitrary schools.

giveita6mo ago

Many Facebooks existed before Facebook. What you were waiting for is not social connections but modern startup strategies. Not sure if Zuck was intentional, but like a bacteria it incubated in a warm Petri dish at 50 degrees C (university dorms as an electronic face book) and then spread from there.

b1126mo ago

You're not wrong about "change" meaning "new potential wealth streams". But not sure Facebook counts, 2004 vs 1993 shows an immense difference in network connectivity and computer ownership. No way, hands down, Facebook would be what it is, if it started in 93. It probably would have gone bankrupt, or been replaced by an upstart.

awesome_dude6mo ago

Has everyone forgotten Yahoo!

It had Geocities, chatrooms and messengers, as well as, for a while, a very strong search engine.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointswewewedxfgdf6mo ago0 comments

>> Is there somehow a glaring vulnerability/missed opportunity in modern capitalism that billions of people somehow haven't discovered yet?

I don't agree with your suggestion that the existing big guys always make the innovations and collect the treasure.

Why did Zuckerberg make facebook, not Microsoft or Google?

Why did Gates make Microsoft, not IBM?

Why did Steve and Steve make Apple, not Hewlett Packard?

Why did Brin and Page make Google - the worlds biggest advertising machine, not Murdoch?

0 comments

lubujackson6mo ago

Also, there was Classmates.com. A way for people to connect with old friends from high school. But it was a subscription service and few people were desperate enough to pay.

So it's wasn't just the idea waiting around but idea with the right combination of factors, user-growth on the Internet, etc.

wewewedxfgdfOP6mo ago

There's always a trail of competitors who almost got the magic formula right, but for some feature or luck or timing or money or something.

Google Search <-- AltaVista, Lycos, Yahoo

Facebook <-- MySpace, Friendster

iPod <-- MP3 players (Rio, Creative)

iPhone <-- BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile

Minecraft <-- Infiniminer

Amazon Web Services <-- traditional hosting

Windows (<-- Mac OS (1984), Xerox PARC

Android <-- Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm

YouTube <-- Vimeo, DailyMotion

Zoom <-- WebEx, Skype, GoToMeeting

awesome_dude6mo ago

Before iPods and iPhones, people thought that those spaces were "solved" and there was no room for "innovation"

mp3 players were commodity items, you could buy one for a couple of dollars, fill it up with your favourite music format (stolen) and off you went.

Phones too - Crackberry was the epitome of sophistication, and technological excellence.

Jobs/Apple didn't create anything "new" in those spheres, instead he added desireability, fancy UX that caught peoples' attentions

c226mo ago

Not a guarantee. I used to find abandoned .edu mailing lists so I could create accounts at arbitrary schools.

giveita6mo ago

b1126mo ago

awesome_dude6mo ago

Has everyone forgotten Yahoo!

It had Geocities, chatrooms and messengers, as well as, for a while, a very strong search engine.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse