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At the risk of being considered overly pedantic; is offering a better product in the marketplace to the detriment of your competitor called 'disruption' now? Is

At the risk of being considered overly pedantic; is offering a better product in the marketplace to the detriment of your competitor called 'disruption' now? Isn't that exactly how the free market is supposed to work?

adrianN 10y ago
What else would you call disruption?
- AznHisoka 10y ago
  SpaceX
  - andruby 10y ago
    SpaceX does the same thing as the Dollar Shave Club: it's making space launches an order of magnitude cheaper.
  - mathgeek 10y ago
    What is SpaceX disrupting, in your view? To me SpaceX is the natural result of NASA's recent plans.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Not much, but that may be because of an intense dislike of the word; in common usage though I would define disruptive when used in the context of an event taking place in the marketplace as applicable only to situations that cause not just stiff competition to the extent of dislodging an incumbent party, but also a clash with existing laws, regulations, and societal conventions on a significant scale.
rahkiin 10y ago
For me, disruption is the creation of a new product or service in a very well established market, that is very different than the established one. For example, Uber and the taxi world, AirBnB and hotels, DSC and Gilette. All have actual impact on the original established market players because without a big change they can't compete.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
As the article explains, the product is actually worse, but much cheaper, and in absolute terms it's "good enough" since the better product is over-serving its market. This is pretty much the textbook definition of disruptive innovation.
- ckastner 10y ago
  But it's the same product, albeit a budget version of it. If the products differ only in quality and price, that's not disruption, that's simple competition.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    A pizza in a restaurant, a pizza in a supermarket and a pizza delivery are all pizzas, but they're not the same product and differences in price is only one factor.
    - ckastner 10y ago
      > A pizza in a restaurant, a pizza in a supermarket and a pizza delivery are all pizzas, but they're not the same product If the product is "pizza", then of course they are the same product. Lay out a salami pizza from a restaurant, supermarket and delivery next to each other on plates and they will (mainly) differ only in quality and price.
      - macintux 10y ago
        Yes, if you ignore everything that makes them different, they do look the same.
        ckastner 10y ago
        OK. What differences do you see between three plates of salami pizza that is not purely a difference in the quality of their ingredients (floor, water, cheese, tomato sauce, salami, etc) and the composition of these?
Bartweiss 10y ago
Particularly weird since DSC didn't offer a better razor. They looked at the existing state-of-the-art, scaled back marginally, and dropped the obscene markup. Realistically, this is about breaking a monopoly thanks to easy consumer outreach.
- TheCondor 10y ago
  I don't know all the details here but by what definition of "better" are we using? I think there are two disrupters here, DSC applied a different business model and distribution model to razors and blades. Dorco, possibly because of DSC money, showed that they can mass produce good enough blades in multi-blade cartridges cheaper than Gillette, who builds billion dollar machines to manufacture them. If blade count is "better" then Dorco is on par or better. If it's the coatings and springs and the whole package then maybe Dorco is merely good enough. Either way, Dorco is able to compete at a quarter of the cost and that seems disruptive. DSC found a great partner though, that has been key. I suspect Gillette has oversold their innovation too.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    I guess I was treating "better" as "delivers a better shaving experience". That's subjective, but I don't know anyone who reports that DSC razors, even the top-tier ones, are more desirable than a decent line from Gillette. Pretty much across the board, the conclusion is "not enough worse to care about". I do wonder how much Gillette oversold their innovation, or at least made advances that could be copied just by looking at their product. They certainly seem to have been throwing a lot of R&D at near-zero returns on actual quality.
    - joe5150 10y ago
      Definitely worse enough for me to going back to buying Gillette blades at the drug store, after spending $9 a month for at least a year on DSC's best razor.
      - 10y ago
billmalarky 10y ago
To me the disruption involved the new supply chain and marketing channels made possible by tech that drastically undercut the incumbent. The actual product differences are mostly irrelevant.

adrianN 10y ago

What else would you call disruption?

AznHisoka 10y ago
SpaceX
- andruby 10y ago
  SpaceX does the same thing as the Dollar Shave Club: it's making space launches an order of magnitude cheaper.
- mathgeek 10y ago
  What is SpaceX disrupting, in your view? To me SpaceX is the natural result of NASA's recent plans.
Freak_NL 10y ago
Not much, but that may be because of an intense dislike of the word; in common usage though I would define disruptive when used in the context of an event taking place in the marketplace as applicable only to situations that cause not just stiff competition to the extent of dislodging an incumbent party, but also a clash with existing laws, regulations, and societal conventions on a significant scale.

rahkiin 10y ago

For me, disruption is the creation of a new product or service in a very well established market, that is very different than the established one. For example, Uber and the taxi world, AirBnB and hotels, DSC and Gilette. All have actual impact on the original established market players because without a big change they can't compete.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

As the article explains, the product is actually worse, but much cheaper, and in absolute terms it's "good enough" since the better product is over-serving its market. This is pretty much the textbook definition of disruptive innovation.

ckastner 10y ago
But it's the same product, albeit a budget version of it. If the products differ only in quality and price, that's not disruption, that's simple competition.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  A pizza in a restaurant, a pizza in a supermarket and a pizza delivery are all pizzas, but they're not the same product and differences in price is only one factor.
  - ckastner 10y ago
    > A pizza in a restaurant, a pizza in a supermarket and a pizza delivery are all pizzas, but they're not the same product If the product is "pizza", then of course they are the same product. Lay out a salami pizza from a restaurant, supermarket and delivery next to each other on plates and they will (mainly) differ only in quality and price.
    - macintux 10y ago
      Yes, if you ignore everything that makes them different, they do look the same.
      - ckastner 10y ago
        OK. What differences do you see between three plates of salami pizza that is not purely a difference in the quality of their ingredients (floor, water, cheese, tomato sauce, salami, etc) and the composition of these?

Bartweiss 10y ago

Particularly weird since DSC didn't offer a better razor. They looked at the existing state-of-the-art, scaled back marginally, and dropped the obscene markup. Realistically, this is about breaking a monopoly thanks to easy consumer outreach.

TheCondor 10y ago
I don't know all the details here but by what definition of "better" are we using? I think there are two disrupters here, DSC applied a different business model and distribution model to razors and blades. Dorco, possibly because of DSC money, showed that they can mass produce good enough blades in multi-blade cartridges cheaper than Gillette, who builds billion dollar machines to manufacture them. If blade count is "better" then Dorco is on par or better. If it's the coatings and springs and the whole package then maybe Dorco is merely good enough. Either way, Dorco is able to compete at a quarter of the cost and that seems disruptive. DSC found a great partner though, that has been key. I suspect Gillette has oversold their innovation too.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I guess I was treating "better" as "delivers a better shaving experience". That's subjective, but I don't know anyone who reports that DSC razors, even the top-tier ones, are more desirable than a decent line from Gillette. Pretty much across the board, the conclusion is "not enough worse to care about". I do wonder how much Gillette oversold their innovation, or at least made advances that could be copied just by looking at their product. They certainly seem to have been throwing a lot of R&D at near-zero returns on actual quality.
  - joe5150 10y ago
    Definitely worse enough for me to going back to buying Gillette blades at the drug store, after spending $9 a month for at least a year on DSC's best razor.
    - 10y ago

billmalarky 10y ago

To me the disruption involved the new supply chain and marketing channels made possible by tech that drastically undercut the incumbent. The actual product differences are mostly irrelevant.