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Let’s see... - Apple, Samsung, LG, and Google have supplanted a wide range of consumer products with modern cell phones. Point-and-shoot cameras, some prosumer

Let’s see... - Apple, Samsung, LG, and Google have supplanted a wide range of consumer products with modern cell phones. Point-and-shoot cameras, some prosumer cameras, low-end document scanners, household telephones, PDAs, small flashlights, small voice recorders, portable tape and CD players, car CD players (via wired or BT connectivity), portable DVD players, boom boxes (via Bluetooth speakers), car GPS navigation systems, compasses (to some extent), pocket notebooks, planners (to some extent), a large segment of the wristwatch and pocket watch market, pocket calculators, professional scientific and graphing calculators, walkie-talkies and handheld radios (not completely though), portable electronic games and some game consoles... those are a few of the big ones. - There is no type of brick-and-mortar store in any branch of retail or auction that hasn’t been hit hard by Amazon and eBay. Additionally, all the B2B businesses in the retail supply/service chain have been hit hard as either their clients suffer or they themselves lose business to Amazon. I could go on. The world is a completely different place than what it was 20 years ago.

imjk 7y ago
While you're not wrong, I don't think all (maybe any?) of these are examples of specifically targeted markets taken over by the companies you mentioned. Apple probably didn't target the flashlight market and decide to take market share from Maglite. I think you've just identified products that have naturally been supplanted by new technologies, many of them falling to the adoption of smartphones. A more appropriate example may be Amazon moving into the groceries market. But even that, one could perhaps argue that their broad market is general retail, with competitors like Walmart and Costco, in which case it wasn't really that far of an extension at all from their natural market. I guess Amazon and Apple moving into the realm of Hollywood and film studios may be a better example. I'd like to see a broader success like Apple taking market share from Automobile manufacturers, etc.

imjk 7y ago

While you're not wrong, I don't think all (maybe any?) of these are examples of specifically targeted markets taken over by the companies you mentioned. Apple probably didn't target the flashlight market and decide to take market share from Maglite. I think you've just identified products that have naturally been supplanted by new technologies, many of them falling to the adoption of smartphones. A more appropriate example may be Amazon moving into the groceries market. But even that, one could perhaps argue that their broad market is general retail, with competitors like Walmart and Costco, in which case it wasn't really that far of an extension at all from their natural market. I guess Amazon and Apple moving into the realm of Hollywood and film studios may be a better example. I'd like to see a broader success like Apple taking market share from Automobile manufacturers, etc.