Times Change; Dominant Tech Firms Change
from the antitrust? dept
An amusing tongue-in-cheek post from Adam Thierer looks back at the internet titans of the mid-90s (merely a decade and a half ago), and wonders if they should have been regulated for antitrust problems at the time:
click for larger version
Fifteen years from now, do people really think that any of those four will still be as dominant, let alone all four? The tech world changes fast. Companies come and companies go. It's ridiculously difficult to stay on top for very long. The idea that the government needs to get involved just doesn't make much sense.
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Filed Under: antitrust, dominance, internet companies
Companies: amazon, apple, facebook, google
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apple: i hate them, but i think they will also be around, hopefully slowly dieing from lack of new ideas, in a field that needs them to maintain, namely the hardware tied to an image
amazon: ummmmmm it depends, i think either they will adapt completely and contently or die out
facebook: no, the nature of where they are; social networks, means they will die as they age very very quickly
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I suspect that many of the laws we have today exist for this reason.
It is ironic that there are people who believe government is competent to tell business / individuals how to run their affairs when government cannot seem to manage its own.
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Will they still be around in 15 years?
I think they have learned from the recent past and have some pretty good long-term planning in place. They couldn't have survived as long as they have without a measure of future planning.
Key to their survival is ensuring they transmit their values, purpose, and foundational processes to those who are up-and-coming in the ranks. Even if that is in the form of an AI made in the image of Page, Brin, Jobs, etc... :-)
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Dialup internet was of course a transitory industry (and companies like AOL failed because they only realized this much too late) with but a decade-long lifespan. In contrast, the telephone industry's basic technology lasted a century, and current wired broadband technology (cable and fiber) will likely not be superseded anytime soon.
It's ironic that the many independent dialup ISPs that sprang up in the 1990s would probably not have even been possible if the US government had not years earlier forced AT@T/Bell Telephone to open access of its system to other (independent) telecoms, in order to give consumers a choice of long-distance carriers. Had the government's anti-trust crusade of earlier years never taken place, it's quite possible that there might have been only one dialup internet provider -- owned and operated by the national telephone monopoly.
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Re: Will they still be around in 15 years?
Well, a couple of things: 2 of the new "big four" mentioned weren't even around 15 years ago so they haven't necessarily learned from anything in that time. Most of them have grown to points they couldn't have imagined 15 years ago, and the growing pains are visible. I'm sure many would question exactly how forward looking Facebook really is, as well...
Personally, I'm sure that all four names will still be around due to their brand name strength, but remaining as dominant players? I'm not so sure. I'd expect at least one of them to have been swallowed up by another company in 15 years, and I'd certainly expect 2 of them to no longer be major players. They will probably be replaced by other companies, at least one of which doesn't exist yet.
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Re:
It is also misleading because this image is basically the "before internet" step of computer networking. Most people were signing up to AOL or Prodigy for their content and services, more than anything. The whole internet thing wasn't even really a big part of their sales mentality.
Computers and networking were still infants. 15 years later, computers are widgets, consumer goods with about the same household penetration as a toaster or a microwave. There was a ton of room for growth and change 15 years ago, but not that much anymore. Such is the reality of a "matured" industry.
The current connection speeds are unlikely to advance much further, we are certainly not looking at increases in speed that will make a major difference. Right now speeds are such that a full HD tv / movie signal can be delivered by most ISPs if you have a reasonable package, only the network structure is less than optimized for this. Going from 50 mbps to 100 mbps is a huge jump, but for the end user it is no longer such a big jump compares between a 28.8 dialup and suddenly a 500k cable modem connection.
Much has changed in 15 years, the problems have shifted from connectivity to content. Nobody 15 years ago could have imagined Googled. If they could, they likely would have avoided it.
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Hell, I was on GENIE, with an IBM PC XT
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Had these been regulated, perhaps they'd have been more cautious:
Conversely, will we EVER be free of Microsoft?
The Microsoft example crumbles your weak thesis: you merely cherry pick. Corporations fade or fail for any number of reasons, but ones focused on aggressively selling mediocre linger: General Motors, McDonalds, and Microsoft at the least.
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Re: Had these been regulated, perhaps they'd have been more cautious:
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Re: Had these been regulated, perhaps they'd have been more cautious:
When it comes to your hand picked "cherries," Microsoft hasn't been replaced yet because today, like 1995 consumers still use computers in the same fundamental ways (a bold statement I know), document processing, communication, graphics design, etc. and new uses evolved more slowly and iteratively rather than leaping ahead (ex. 56k to 1mb/s - 1700% increase). I think we could see a new dominate OS in the next 10 years, probably much more simplified than windows (like iOS, Android, ChromeOS) as our habits of sitting at a desktop computer evolve to laptop to netbook to tablet. The adoption rate of tablets and netbooks have been amazingly fast, and its leaps like that were the Giants can be unseated.
As far as McD's people's use of the service hasn't changed. People still use, and expect the same out of their service, fast, cheap ($), and cheap (quality) food. until technology comes out that radically upsets that... like a 3d food printer at home where you can download recipes, McD's will probably be around.
General motors.. aside from the fact they already went bankrupt and we bailed them out... (so we could have been 'free' from them) I think the next generation of fuel could cause the demise of GM. pure electric, hydrogen, something new (most likely), could easily unseat these slow-to-evolve giants.
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Mike, I love your articles, but.....
As has been stated, the dial-up services went the way of the dinosaur because of broadband service. Tech does move fast and Facebook and Google are excellent examples of how companies can quickly become the dominant player in a space. Google rules search, for now; and Facebook is the dominant social network. Amazon and Apple are also dominant companies in their space, and even though there is some crossover, between Amazon and Apple, as well as crossover between Google and Facebook, all four of these companies are in distinctly different spaces in the market.
This whole article could have been spun in Techdirt style to show how it is not necessary for the government to protect business models that are rendered obsolete by the advancement of technology. What if the dial-up services had whined and lobbied Congress for protection from the evil broadband monsters that were killing them? It didn't happen that way because they saw the writing on the wall and they adapted or merged to get out of the way of the next wave of progress. The content industry needs to learn from that example and adapt or merge or die off and step out of the way of the next wave of progress.
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Re: Had these been regulated, perhaps they'd have been more cautious:
My prediction? They're following the same path as IBM: the big, indomitable industry player who, over time, becomes less and less relevant to the market they once dominated. Just as IBM has certainly not gone away, neither will Microsoft. However, IBM hasn't ruled the roost for a long time and in general are inconsequential to the industry. This will be Microsoft's fate. They're already well on their way.
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Antitrust
Unbiased data, on the other hand, shows that breaking up AT&T was a VERY good thing, and that breaking up Microsoft (okay, didn't happen - should have) would, at one time, have given us a huge shot in the arm (that we didn't get).
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All dominance is temporary
He, by the way, is one of the few economists who has anything useful to say and realizes the serious limitations of his field.
For an even wider evolutionary scenario that accounts for the rise and fall of "greats" try my "The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?" (free download in e-book formats from the "Unusual Perspectives" website).
It provides an understanding of why, as Douglas Adams implied somewhere, very little in the conduct of human affairs seems to make sense. Yet things move on and continue to grow.
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All dominance is temporary
He, by the way, is one of the few economists who has anything useful to say and realizes the serious limitations of his field.
For an even wider evolutionary scenario that accounts for the rise and fall of "greats" try my "The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?" (free download in e-book formats from the "Unusual Perspectives" website).
It provides an understanding of why, as Douglas Adams implied somewhere, very little in the conduct of human affairs seems to make sense. Yet things move on and continue to grow.
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Re: Re: Will they still be around in 15 years?
I agree with your second point though, given how many mergers and takeovers we've seen the last year, it's very unlikely that any of the big 4 will be exactly the same as they are now, and at least one of them will lose a spot in the top 4, though probably remaining in the top 10 (I'd guess Apple).
Google has massive brand awareness, and probably still has the best search algorithms in the world. If they can avoid making the sort of mistakes they have been with things like Google+ then they'll still be relevant in 15 years, but they'll need to get into the knowledge engine game. I wouldn't be surprised if they bought a few of IBM's Watson systems for that very purpose.
Amazon has the potential to stick around for quite a while, they're very competitive when it comes to buying goods, and they're massively expanding their cloud business, which puts them in a good position as a service provider to others in the future.
Facebook is constantly innovating, trying new things (one look at the number of protest groups that pop up every time they change a font is all you need to see that), and as long as they keep trying new things and remain open to new ideas then they'll last, but the competition in the social networking space is fierce, so it could go either way.
Apple is where things get interesting, they have a massive audience tied into their ecosystem with the iPhone and iTunes, but with the loss of Steve they may have also lost the sense of drive and direction he brought (for better or worse). The iCloud could be big, but if Android and WP7 keep up the pressure then Apple will slowly lose the dominance it has now (I know the number of Android phones is greater than the number of iPhones, but Apple is still beating Google in overall mobile revenue). We've already seen that Android is slowly beating the iPhone back, only time will tell how far they'll slip.
Just my 2c.
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