4 ms·

> If there is no competitor, there is no market. Wut. If Steve Jobs had thought that or followed this advice, there would be no iPhone.

jononor 9y ago
Many million mobile phones were being sold per year, from 10ish big companies.
- codegladiator 9y ago
  Would you like to owe one of those phone or the iphone 1 now ?
  - muzani 9y ago
    I did own one of those Symbian phones for a long time and only switched to a Samsung S2 later on. The iPhone 1 had worse games and was too expensive for the regular things like calls, SMS, music, and photos.
muzani 9y ago
I mean competitors in solving a similar problem, not using the same approach. The competitor to the iPhone was the smartphone - a device running on Symbian with 9 buttons, Java apps, and Internet access. Or Blackberry. Android and a third unsuccessful operating system was also in development at the same time. The Wright brothers had plenty of well funded competitors. The competitor to the car was the horse. The competitor to transistors was vacuum tubes. Reddit - forums Airbnb - hotels Uber - taxis Amazon - book stores Blue Apron - grocery stores + recipe sites There are some exceptions. I'm sure time travel and teleportation has a huge market. But does it? It's difficult to invent teleportation because there is no attack. Many inventions are variations on others. And when teleportation is possible, it would still compete with transportation. Prices would anchor on to existing transportation. Why would I teleport to school and risk cancer if I could take a bus? Why would I pay a hundred thousand dollars to teleport to my parents' house if I can just fly to get there in 4 hours and $100? There are plenty of use cases for teleportation but these have to solve existing problems better. Sending things to space for example, or sending TVs from US to UK. The case is similar with any other technology, whether it's AR or AI. You can seemingly apply them everywhere, but a good start is to apply them to something they're not solving.

jononor 9y ago

Many million mobile phones were being sold per year, from 10ish big companies.

codegladiator 9y ago
Would you like to owe one of those phone or the iphone 1 now ?
- muzani 9y ago
  I did own one of those Symbian phones for a long time and only switched to a Samsung S2 later on. The iPhone 1 had worse games and was too expensive for the regular things like calls, SMS, music, and photos.

muzani 9y ago

I mean competitors in solving a similar problem, not using the same approach. The competitor to the iPhone was the smartphone - a device running on Symbian with 9 buttons, Java apps, and Internet access. Or Blackberry. Android and a third unsuccessful operating system was also in development at the same time. The Wright brothers had plenty of well funded competitors. The competitor to the car was the horse. The competitor to transistors was vacuum tubes. Reddit - forums Airbnb - hotels Uber - taxis Amazon - book stores Blue Apron - grocery stores + recipe sites There are some exceptions. I'm sure time travel and teleportation has a huge market. But does it? It's difficult to invent teleportation because there is no attack. Many inventions are variations on others. And when teleportation is possible, it would still compete with transportation. Prices would anchor on to existing transportation. Why would I teleport to school and risk cancer if I could take a bus? Why would I pay a hundred thousand dollars to teleport to my parents' house if I can just fly to get there in 4 hours and $100? There are plenty of use cases for teleportation but these have to solve existing problems better. Sending things to space for example, or sending TVs from US to UK. The case is similar with any other technology, whether it's AR or AI. You can seemingly apply them everywhere, but a good start is to apply them to something they're not solving.