[derefr]

> It's really sad we've forgotten that.

I don't think anyone's forgotten; we forgive small companies for trying-and-failing to do something cool all the time. For some reason, though, we (as an angry mob) seem to be incapable of allowing big companies to try-and-fail at exactly the same sorts of things.

(Personally, I think it might have something to do with how ancestral-environment humans saw leaders making promises as mostly a chance to tear them down from their dominant positions.)

[k__]

I think it's because we expect start-ups to fail, most of them do.

Big companies fail, too, but less often, because they once were part of the few start-ups who didn't fail.

If you want high-end and are happy to live with the risk, you go to a start-up.

If you want safety and are happy to live with a more conservative approach, you go to a big company.

If the big one fails, you feel robbed of your safety.

[derefr]

But why can't people differentiate between "big company serving their regular audience" and "big company trying something new"? The something-new ventures, no matter how hard they fail, never affect the ability of the company to deliver on their something-safe ventures. For example, no matter how much of a flop a new version of Ubuntu is, it won't stop them from supporting the LTS versions.