[stickfigure]

This situation does exist though; otherwise startups and new products would never succeed. Big companies have blind spots.

Netflix, Google, Airbnb, Uber, Slack, the iPhone, Github, Stripe, Dropbox. Big players at the time could have built their products, but didn't.

[iamjackg]

How many of those are "the exact same product, but better" though? Definitely the iPhone, and possibly Slack. Everything else you listed was a drastic change in the way an existing service (taxis, home media, backups) was delivered or priced, to the point where they feel like either an entirely different product (or an unsustainably priced one that wins by virtue of being cheaper at first, see Uber and Airbnb).

I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with you -- but I think there are some things where "everybody has clearly been doing this wrong the whole time" doesn't pass the smell test: ovens have been around for millennia, including through the whole industrial revolution and recent exponential modernization of technology.

[BoxFour]

> Everything else you listed was a drastic change in the way an existing service (taxis, home media, backups) was delivered or priced, to the point where they feel like either an entirely different product

Doesn't this still line up with the original point though?

The incumbents had the exact same opportunity to capitalize. Blockbuster could've leaned into streaming hard before Netflix.

I do think that's become a bit harder recently, though, so the original point is slightly less relevant (though obviously still exists, see for example OpenAI vis-a-vis DeepMind). Big companies are much faster on chasing trends, even if they end up amounting to not much. See crypto, for example. I do think part of that reason is because the current wave of companies capitalized where incumbents faltered, so they're desperate not to make the same mistake.

[stickfigure]

Google was definitely "exact same product, but better". It was a search box.

However, I think Anova would be a better direct counterpoint. They started in sous vide, replacing existing products that did the same thing but better. But now they are literally trying to replace ovens. That effort started after the Electrolux acquisition in 2017, but they do seem to be pretty successful. A friend of mine really likes their steam oven, and if I had more space in the kitchen, I would be tempted.

[nikanj]

But what were the huge, established companies that had refused to deliver a better product before Google came along?

[esprehn]

Yahoo. They very nearly bought Google too, but refused the initial $1m offer and then bid too low the second time. Kind of hilarious to see how that played out over time.

  Yahoo had two failed attempts to acquire Google; in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin approached Yahoo to sell their nascent search engine for $1 million, but Yahoo declined the offer.[37][38]

  In 2002, when Terry Semel entered into negotiations to purchase Google. Google was reportedly seeking a price of $5 billion. After weeks of negotiation, Yahoo's final offer was $3 billion, a figure that Google's leadership rejected, leading them to terminate the deal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo

[fragmede]

Altavista, Yahoo, AskJeeves, Excite.com, something Rocket. It was a long time ago and I've forgotten the rest.

[ShroudedNight]

Lycos

[iamjackg]

You're right. I should have included Google in the list!