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Standard Oil actually did start out as a toy. They provided oil to burn in lamps. At the time most people thought that was a somewhat silly gimmick and a fad th
by turingcompeteme 9y ago
Standard Oil actually did start out as a toy. They provided oil to burn in lamps. At the time most people thought that was a somewhat silly gimmick and a fad that would quickly pass. Oil in general was seen as something neat but not essential for years. But just like facebook, many people soon came around to the idea and it took over the world.
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. covers this all in incredible detail, if it is something that interests you.
- brucephillips 9y agoI wouldn't call lamp oil a toy. The defining feature of a toy is that people use it just for the joy of using it, rather than to solve a problem.
- gaustin 9y agoHaving an abundance of light at night was a novelty and a luxury in the past. Definitely toy territory in my book.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- khedoros1 9y agoI bought an LCD monitor in 2003. It was a novelty and a luxury to me at the time...but I bought it to solve the problem of not having space for a 20" CRT on my desk at school. I don't see how something being novel and luxurious necessarily means that it's also a toy.
- gaustin 9y agoI never claimed it did. Further, I don't think there is a dichotomy here. You could have solved your problem in a dozen other ways. You were privileged enough to do it in the way that presumable pleased you most. There is a hint of toyness to it in that respect.
- khedoros1 9y agoYou certainly implied that it did. > You could have solved your problem in a dozen other ways. Hmm. And what ways would those be? First, I simplified when I said that "I" bought the monitor. It was a gift, bought for me, that I didn't have particular choice in. Second, I'm unaware of "a dozen" ways to solve the problem of displaying a computer's output. If you'd care to list the ones you're thinking of...
- gaustin 9y ago> You certainly implied that it did. "in my book" is often used to cast a statement as opinion. So something "definitely" being X "in my book" is pretty clearly not meant to be any sort of argument (necessary! sufficient! proof! -- gag me with conversation killers) where I come from. I don't think there's any good way to define a toy in any hard-and-fast way, so rubbing words like "necessary" on it is just not in play. In the original discussion, lamp oil was interesting when framed as a toy. The background given was enough for me to think of it as such as part of the thought experiment. I gave a couple of dimensions that I think supported its toyness when some balked. You could: 1) not have a monitor on your desk 2) use a smaller monitor 3) use a laptop 4) get a bigger desk Each of these has a number of ways you might achieve them, easily meeting or exceeding the throw-away number I posited. For example, with (1) you might use a school computer lab. Or you might eschew computer use altogether. Or you might borrow a computer when necessary. Or you might devise an alternate mounting scheme. Or you might get a lap desk, so you need less real-desk surface for other things. Anyway, we're way off in some boring-ass woods. The woods that kept me from participating here for years. Good day, human.
- loeber 9y agoThis is plainly wrong. Rockefeller started dealing in oil because the unit economics were excellent, and because he recognized that no dominant players had emerged in the market yet, opening it up to vertical & horizontal integration (both of which he executed flawlessly). Furthermore, asserting that indoor lighting was a toy -- in an age where other light sources were dim, prohibitively expensive, or excessively smoky -- seems mistaken to me.
- brucephillips 9y agoI don't see how desirable unit economics refutes GP's claim that the initial market was lamp oil.
- afarrell 9y agoIt doesn't, but the lack of other good sources of indoor lighting refutes the claim that the lamp oil market is a toy.
- hnzix 9y ago> refutes the claim that the lamp oil market is a toy. GP never made that claim. The point is that lamp oil was perceived as a toy before people realized the (blindingly obvious in hindsight) utility for indoor lighting.
- afarrell 9y agoWhat did they use lamp oil for then? I thought lamp oil was always for indoor lighting...
- turingcompeteme 9y agoHow about this: oil was being given to kids to play with when Rockefeller was getting started. Yes the economics were excellent. But very few actually wanted it for years. Oil was fun to set on fire, but hadn't found mainstream use yet. Rockefeller created and dominated the market. Many of Rockefeller's early writings were about his frustrations of oil not being taken seriously. And he definitely agreed with you that it was a mistake to see oil lamps as toys.
- Blackthorn 9y agoThis is a bit skimpy on the details. I highly recommend every American adult to read The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. It will change the way you think about the world. It also shows how Rockefeller was able to pivot his business from kerosene lamps, which were on the way to obsolescence, to fuel.
- Patient0 9y agoJust curious: why only American adults? (I am Australian)
- Blackthorn 9y agoWell, anyone else can read it of course. Just that the history of America as a superpower and the history of oil are pretty well entwined.
- Isamu 9y agoAustralians don't read, they wrestle crocodiles while drinking beer. Americans don't read either, though, they are too busy eating sufficient quantities to double their body fat. (I am American)
- taneq 9y agoDon't stop now! The English are too busy with tea and crumpets, the Irish with folk dancing, the Finns with sliding cars around on slippery roads, and the Norwegians with jumping off mountains in squirrel suits.
- dredmorbius 9y agoExcellent book. And recommended for the fine denizens of Altair IV (both of us) as well. I'd also very strongly recommend Vaclav Smil's Energy and World History (1994) or the updated Energy and Civilization (2017). These describe history through the lens of energy sources, and the role of energy in that history. Manfred Weisenbacher takes on much the same story in Sources of Power, which is a more comprehensive, if uneven, book. Excellently researched (and drawing heavily on Smil as well as many, many other sources), but could use some trimming and occasionally verges strongly to the polemical.
- reaperducer 9y agoAs a point of interest, I seem to recall from a documentary I once saw that Rockefeller was the person who invented the pipeline, because he was sick of paying railroads to move his oil around.
- dredmorbius 9y agoPretty much. There were no long-haul pipelines as we know them prior to the 1860s. Part of that arose from the fact that there was no material particularly suited to pipelines. Water tended to be transported in viaducts (or occasionally tunnels). Longer runs might be made of clay. Even firing that required tremendous amounts of fuel in a fuel-starved world. The advent of Bessemer steel, machine tools, railroads (and steel rather than wrought-iron rails, far stronger and less prone to splitting), and mechanical pumps, allowed pipelines to be built. The first that I'm aware of were deployed along Oil Creek in Titusville, Pennsylvania, home of the U.S. petroleum industry. Contemporaneous accounts discuss the development of those pipelines. Long, interstate pipelines came out of World War II. The U.S. had been shipping oil from Texas to New Jersey via tankers, but German U-boats were sinking these by the hundreds. The U.S. government financed the construction of the Big Inch and Little Inch pipelines, which remain in use.
- cgore 9y agoI don't know about oil, but I thought airplanes were rich people's silly toys at first? And then WW1 happened.
- hyperpallium 9y agoAnother: fireworks were toys (well, not sure if for children at the time, but for entertainment).