Christensen also points out that disruptive technologies often start out the opposite of expensive. They target some low-margin market that is being over-served

Christensen also points out that disruptive technologies often start out the opposite of expensive. They target some low-margin market that is being over-served by existing technology. Then they grow to eat the high-margin competitors from below. There are tons and tons of examples: PCs, low-cost airlines, Linux servers, web applications. Disruptive technologies are often seen as low-end, not-really-good-enough solutions until they suddenly are everywhere and you realize that you have become Digital, US Airways, Sun Microsystems, or Microsoft. The disruptive technology can be cheap or expensive. One expensive thing that is ripe for disruption is mobile bandwidth. Someone with a lot of capital should build a large network of cell towers and then sell the bandwidth to random startups. That would put a stop to 20 cent text messages. (Maybe this will do it: http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-03-30/4g-satellite-company-takes-aim-at-cell-carriers.html http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-03-30/4g-satellite-comp...) The author of this piece seems to use "disruptive" in the sense of "revolutionary change", but that's not really how Christensen uses it.