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You missed my point entirely. Amazon isn't that groundbreaking, what is groundbreaking was the concept and workings of the internet itself, which Amazon, Netflix and Google had nothing to do with.
As for Apple, name one groundbreaking invention to come out of that company?
Yes the tools are important but so is the work that's done with them. Isolating either element prevents a holistic view of the system.
Blackberry didn't adapt in time. They did not see the smart phone revolution ahead of them and by the time they realized that they needed to change it was too late.
Blackberry, what a bunch of complacent and arrogant dimwits that ran that company. They thought their phones and their email features were revolutionary and never bothered to upgrade the UI. Companies realized they didn't have to stay with them and moved on to Androids and iPhones which could do the email features just as well and do a lot more. They rested too much on their laurels and when they finally decided to provide a newer OS and phones it was too late.
Same thing happened to Nokia, they wasted too much time with their out of date OS Symbian and produced unremarkable phones which caused their downfall.
The smartphone market is quick to change and you need to be on your toes all the time. There is no time for complacency.
I worked for a company that specialized in streaming internet content for schools and the children's market in 1995. We were one of the first internet companies to stream content (using Shockwave 1.0 and Netscape browsers). We were owned by a major corporatation.
The corporate office shut us down in 1998 because:
a. "no school is going to allow an internet site that has ads and/or pay for a subscription for internet content, and
b. they did not want us to be in the commercial market for children because that was not our primary focus.
At the time of our demise, we were partners with Yahoo (the dominant search engine of the time) in developing their kids' site Yahooligans!.
We had an agreement in place to develop a children's sports site for Sportsline USA (the biggest sports site at the time).
The decision-makers made a bad decision to shut us down.
Tom Carvel was approached by Ray Kroc to become his partner but Carvel turned him down because he didn't believe hamburgers and ice cream were a good combination for a business. He later had second thoughts and opened a number of Hubie's Hamburger places that were short-lived, probably largely due to competition from the better established McDonalds chain.
WordPerfect. Anyone who was around in the early PC era knows that Whippy came along and cornered the market, pushing WordStar and a few other players into oblivion. When graphical interfaces came along, they stalled and sulked and refused to develop for both OS/2 and Windows, eventually picked the wrong horse, and by the time they figured out Windows was the future, Word had successfully transitioned to GUI and never looked back, even though it remained inferior to WP for years.
There was a memorable full-page ad from WP's CEO, basically whining and complaining and sulking that their customer base hadn't followed them to OS/2 and almost literally saying, FINE, then, we'll do a Windows product.
They survived only because the legal profession had adapted WP, and vice versa, to their field. (Almost wholly, in the beginning, because of a very slick line-numbering feature.) I just saw a WordPerfect Office pack somewhere like Target or Sam's. But classic case of absolutely owning a market, having no reason to ever lose ground, and just piddling away the advantage.
Add Eudora to that list.
I was in the industry and cannot remember WP being called Whippy! I have a WP pen and pad set, with a little calculator in it.
You missed my point entirely. Amazon isn't that groundbreaking, what is groundbreaking was the concept and workings of the internet itself, which Amazon, Netflix and Google had nothing to do with.
As for Apple, name one groundbreaking invention to come out of that company?
Amazon not that ground breaking? Google? Netflix? Apple (creator of Iphone and the Mac)? Innovation is not the same as "invention". That seems to be one point of confusion you have. But these companies redefined industry, they took a tool and created wealth, along with tens of thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue. Yes you are right, the internet was the tool - the real key was creative freedom in the use of these tools, the leeway to take risks, think outside the box, hire the best and brightest, letting the consumer dictate the product, and plain hard work...all without government intervention - that's called capitalism my friend. That's the very definition of innovation. And no other place in the world does it better than the US. In the above response you actually totally destroyed your own argument that the government did all the innovation. So, yeah, that is exactly the point. Thanks for agreeing with me.
And to circle around to the original topic so we stay on topic: When a company finds those qualities and values no longer worthwhile in there organization - risk taking, hiring the best, consumer needs, and hard work - they retrench and ultimately fail.
WordPerfect. Anyone who was around in the early PC era knows that Whippy came along and cornered the market, pushing WordStar and a few other players into oblivion. When graphical interfaces came along, they stalled and sulked and refused to develop for both OS/2 and Windows, eventually picked the wrong horse, and by the time they figured out Windows was the future, Word had successfully transitioned to GUI and never looked back, even though it remained inferior to WP for years.
I agree in essence but I think Word would have eventually dominated anyway once it became part of Office. The sheer number of people buying Office to get Excel would make Word ubiquitous and newer users would be thinking why buy WP when I already have Word.
Amazon not that ground breaking? Google? Netflix? Apple (creator of Iphone and the Mac)? Innovation is not the same as "invention". That seems to be one point of confusion you have. But these companies redefined industry, they took a tool and created wealth, along with tens of thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue.
No.....none of those companies are or were groundbreaking or truly innovative. For starters they weren't the first in their field. Amazon wasn't the first e-commerce marketplace, Apple didn't make the first smart phone, Google didn't create the first search engine. Not only were they not the first there was often ample development being done in their field years before these companies came along. The first demonstration of online shopping occurred in 1979 by an English inventor Michael Aldrich. Amazon didn't show up until the mid-90's 15 years later. Which in the world of tech is a lifetime. Ditto for the smart phone and Apple. Sorry but none of these companies are innovative in the slightest. They are great at marketing and creating monopolies, but that isn't very innovative nor is it good for the consumer or worker.
Quote:
Yes you are right, the internet was the tool - the real key was creative freedom in the use of these tools, the leeway to take risks, think outside the box, hire the best and brightest, letting the consumer dictate the product, and plain hard work...all without government intervention - that's called capitalism my friend.
This quote made me laugh at loud. Amazon relies heavily on government intervention just not in the way you would think. You know about 1/3rd of all Amazon employees are on food stamps. Instead of Amazon actually paying these people a living wage, which they easily could afford to do. Amazon instead pays these poor folks below market salaries then relies on the American taxpayers to subsidize the remaining needed income via food stamps. That's right, our tax dollars (yours and mine) help pay for Amazon employees cost of living. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos the CEO, chairman and president of Amazon is one of the richest men in human history with a network of 129 billion. For once you are right, it is capitalism at its finest. It only goes to show how utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt our economic system has become....21st century feudalism.
Quote:
And no other place in the world does it better than the US. In the above response you actually totally destroyed your own argument that the government did all the innovation. So, yeah, that is exactly the point. Thanks for agreeing with me.
I have no idea what point you are trying to make here.
This quote made me laugh at loud. Amazon relies heavily on government intervention just not in the way you would think. You know about 1/3rd of all Amazon employees are on food stamps. Instead of Amazon actually paying these people a living wage, which they easily could afford to do. Amazon instead pays these poor folks below market salaries then relies on the American taxpayers to subsidize the remaining needed income via food stamps. That's right, our tax dollars (yours and mine) help pay for Amazon employees cost of living. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos the CEO, chairman and president of Amazon is one of the richest men in human history with a network of 129 billion. For once you are right, it is capitalism at its finest. It only goes to show how utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt our economic system has become....21st century feudalism.
Oh my goodness, we've devolved into the stereotypical "corporations/rich people bad" diatribe. I should have stopped when you said Google, Amazon, etc. are not representative of innovative companies, thus dismissing the consensus of just about everyone on earth. You have an agenda way over and above this forum (which is history) me thinks and this is what gets these thread closed. Now you are pulling from the usual clickbait news sources.
Amazon had half a million employees worldwide - skilled software developers, skilled technicians, salesmen, delivery drivers, warehouse people, full-time, part-time. The employees that work in the headquarters, tens of thousands of them, easily make 6 figure salaries, those are different skills from a warehouse job in Ohio obviously. You have been wrong in every way in this thread and you are also wrong here, or at least grossly misleading: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/am...s-food-stamps/
This is the conclusion:
"The 11.8 percent figure was only an estimate; was based on one single state; and income is not the sole factor that determines food stamp eligibility."
So my first question is why are you trying to mislead the good people of this forum?
My second question is a request to kindly take your "big corporation bad" topic to another forum so it doesn't get closed (I'm at fault for this as well).
Edit: Oh this explains it looking at your posting history. You are a P&C forum poster that decided to come up from that sewer of partisan discussions and hit-and-run posting and grace us with your commentary. How generous of you. Once again - note the banner on top of this forum: H-I-S-T-O-R-Y.
Last edited by Dd714; 07-19-2019 at 10:43 AM..
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