5 ms·

I think the article describes exactly the two factors in play: > The more you look for it in networked environments, the more frequently some sort of 90:9:1 ra

I think the article describes exactly the two factors in play: > The more you look for it in networked environments, the more frequently some sort of 90:9:1 ratio seems to emerge once the market matures. First, of course something will show up the more you look for it. Second, "once the market matures" is completely up in the air. Was the market immature in November 2009, when IE had 65%, Firefox 24%, and Safari, Chrome, and Opera each 2-4% of the browser market? Is it mature now? I don't think "immature" is the word that comes to mind to describe the browser market, for many. Yet there's certainly no 90:9:1 ratio in browser share currently.

notahacker 11y ago
In fact, with browsers the 90:9:1 ratio was present around the turn of the century when the internet was much more immature and the trend has been away from that.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  I think mature isn't the right word I would use stable instead. 10 to 1 ratio also pops up in business quite a bit between leaders and competitors in high entry barrier fields. If your competitor is 10 times bigger than you then 90:9:1 ratio pops out quite naturally in many places espcially with even the slightest selection bias. Pretty much most Leader:challenger:niche selections will maintain a similar ratio, just your run of the mill power distribution.
mikeash 11y ago
"Once the market matures" seems to make this a tautology. Oh, the ratio isn't 90:9:1? Must not have matured yet.
- fragsworth 11y ago
  There are plenty of technologies/companies that have no clear 90:9:1 ratio. Databases, programming languages, consoles, portable consoles, laptops, games, game developers. The "90:9:1 ratio" is a specific case of a zipf curve. Popularity is always fluctuating, but generally follows a zipf curve for distribution.
coryl 11y ago
Isn't it better/easier to measure maturity by looking at a product's major generational milestones or releases? ie. the 4th iPhone, or the 4th Tesla. Does that help? Most new things seem to follow that growth curve of early adopters, mass market, etc.
sparkie 11y ago
"The market matures" in my view means "innovation has stagnated". The only apparent differences between the competing products are cost, convenience and the network effect. The technological differences are uninteresting. It seems in this environment, the smaller players attempt to stay alive by becoming replicas of the market leader.
cmarschner 11y ago
Technically the browser "market" is not a market, because browsers are for free. That's very unusual. Hence whoever invests most in its development + distribution can gain market share. Similar to Android, Chrome is strategically important for Google to keep users in their ecosystem, so it makes sense for them to overinvest. It's just a loss leader paid for by advertising dollars. Also distribution is cheap for them through google.com. Microsoft has kept IE in the Windows org, and for the longest time did not invest enough to pay down technical debt. For the longest time investments couldn't be justified with advertisement dollars, so after they "won" the browser war with Netscape's demise they cut down much of the IE team. Firefox devs paid down Netscape's technical debt for free to escape the IE monopoly. But distribution is a problem for them since they neither own the desktop OS nor the web's primary entry point.
- iopq 11y ago
  > It's just a loss leader I think having Google bundled makes it a clear winner. If Firefox can pay its developers with just the search engine bundle, and it's less popular, it would probably stand to reason that Chrome has paid off much more. In a world where Firefox is the #1 alternative to IE and Chrome has very weak showing Firefox either asks Google for a ton more money or switches to Yahoo and Google loses a lot more market share.
- kami8845 11y ago
  It's still a market if every product is free. And they're not even really free, you pay with potential advertising revenue, vendor lock-in and with data that you generate.
  - cmarschner 11y ago
    Well they are just as much of a product as free parking is for a convenience store. The browser is not the product. You are the product, sold to advertisers.

notahacker 11y ago

In fact, with browsers the 90:9:1 ratio was present around the turn of the century when the internet was much more immature and the trend has been away from that.

dogma1138 11y ago
I think mature isn't the right word I would use stable instead. 10 to 1 ratio also pops up in business quite a bit between leaders and competitors in high entry barrier fields. If your competitor is 10 times bigger than you then 90:9:1 ratio pops out quite naturally in many places espcially with even the slightest selection bias. Pretty much most Leader:challenger:niche selections will maintain a similar ratio, just your run of the mill power distribution.

mikeash 11y ago

"Once the market matures" seems to make this a tautology. Oh, the ratio isn't 90:9:1? Must not have matured yet.

fragsworth 11y ago
There are plenty of technologies/companies that have no clear 90:9:1 ratio. Databases, programming languages, consoles, portable consoles, laptops, games, game developers. The "90:9:1 ratio" is a specific case of a zipf curve. Popularity is always fluctuating, but generally follows a zipf curve for distribution.

coryl 11y ago

Isn't it better/easier to measure maturity by looking at a product's major generational milestones or releases? ie. the 4th iPhone, or the 4th Tesla. Does that help? Most new things seem to follow that growth curve of early adopters, mass market, etc.

sparkie 11y ago

"The market matures" in my view means "innovation has stagnated". The only apparent differences between the competing products are cost, convenience and the network effect. The technological differences are uninteresting. It seems in this environment, the smaller players attempt to stay alive by becoming replicas of the market leader.

cmarschner 11y ago

Technically the browser "market" is not a market, because browsers are for free. That's very unusual. Hence whoever invests most in its development + distribution can gain market share. Similar to Android, Chrome is strategically important for Google to keep users in their ecosystem, so it makes sense for them to overinvest. It's just a loss leader paid for by advertising dollars. Also distribution is cheap for them through google.com. Microsoft has kept IE in the Windows org, and for the longest time did not invest enough to pay down technical debt. For the longest time investments couldn't be justified with advertisement dollars, so after they "won" the browser war with Netscape's demise they cut down much of the IE team. Firefox devs paid down Netscape's technical debt for free to escape the IE monopoly. But distribution is a problem for them since they neither own the desktop OS nor the web's primary entry point.

iopq 11y ago
> It's just a loss leader I think having Google bundled makes it a clear winner. If Firefox can pay its developers with just the search engine bundle, and it's less popular, it would probably stand to reason that Chrome has paid off much more. In a world where Firefox is the #1 alternative to IE and Chrome has very weak showing Firefox either asks Google for a ton more money or switches to Yahoo and Google loses a lot more market share.
kami8845 11y ago
It's still a market if every product is free. And they're not even really free, you pay with potential advertising revenue, vendor lock-in and with data that you generate.
- cmarschner 11y ago
  Well they are just as much of a product as free parking is for a convenience store. The browser is not the product. You are the product, sold to advertisers.