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This is the wrong way to think about things. Competition is good. If it weren't for the need to compete, would Google have spent billions on innovations like S

This is the wrong way to think about things. Competition is good. If it weren't for the need to compete, would Google have spent billions on innovations like Street View, Satellite imagery, Google Earth, etc. Or would they have just said, "MapQuest has won the internet maps game, let's just let MapQuest do their own thing. No use in doing the same work twice,"

dljsjr 9y ago
I think you slightly missed the parent comment's point, which is not that they should have walked away but rather have said "man, we really want better maps and imaging for navigation, MapQuest has a great head start, we should work with them to make it even better". I'm not sure what economic model encourages that sort of behavior, though.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  Agreed. Yet this sort of sharing has happened in some fields - for example, with game engines. Which I never thought I'd see, way back when. The best of these now tend to be opened up (for royalties.) Perhaps that needs to have more regulatory or government encouragement; although like yourself I'm not quite sure how to do that and still keep incentives in place. Particularly where only one or two firms are really competitive.
djsumdog 9y ago
What if all the data was public and shared and different people could build their own representations. What if everyone collaborated? I disagree with the competition is always good. There are many cases where you are duplicating work. The best standard rarely wins (PCI vs MCA .. MCA was superior in many ways technologically .. was even hot pluggable, but PCI had better licensing). We get into a lot of repetition and the 'best' product rarely wins. It's more about marketing your product in a way people desire it. Example: Beats Audio Headphones.
wiz21c 9y ago
Please don't conflate competition and diversity. Competition is not a condition to diversity. I'd say that competition enforce a trade off between diversity and concentration of power.

dljsjr 9y ago

I think you slightly missed the parent comment's point, which is not that they should have walked away but rather have said "man, we really want better maps and imaging for navigation, MapQuest has a great head start, we should work with them to make it even better". I'm not sure what economic model encourages that sort of behavior, though.

Nomentatus 9y ago
Agreed. Yet this sort of sharing has happened in some fields - for example, with game engines. Which I never thought I'd see, way back when. The best of these now tend to be opened up (for royalties.) Perhaps that needs to have more regulatory or government encouragement; although like yourself I'm not quite sure how to do that and still keep incentives in place. Particularly where only one or two firms are really competitive.

djsumdog 9y ago

What if all the data was public and shared and different people could build their own representations. What if everyone collaborated? I disagree with the competition is always good. There are many cases where you are duplicating work. The best standard rarely wins (PCI vs MCA .. MCA was superior in many ways technologically .. was even hot pluggable, but PCI had better licensing). We get into a lot of repetition and the 'best' product rarely wins. It's more about marketing your product in a way people desire it. Example: Beats Audio Headphones.

wiz21c 9y ago

Please don't conflate competition and diversity. Competition is not a condition to diversity. I'd say that competition enforce a trade off between diversity and concentration of power.