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Oh interesting. I was trying to express that the mentality of competition constrains us to what’s already been done. That’s why it’s harmful. Carving out a piec

Oh interesting. I was trying to express that the mentality of competition constrains us to what’s already been done. That’s why it’s harmful. Carving out a piece of the future requires a different perspective, ideally one that’s hard for the incumbent to replicate.

pdonis 6y ago
> I was trying to express that the mentality of competition constrains us to what’s already been done. That’s why it’s harmful. That doesn't seem to me like a mentality of competition. It seems to me like a mentality of just going with the status quo. Competition in no way requires going with the status quo. If you can out-compete others by changing the rules, competition tells you to change the rules. David was competing with Goliath; David won the competition by changing the rules. To the extent competition is harmful, it's harmful because, as noted at the start of the article, it tends to foster a zero-sum mentality: the only way I can win is for you to lose. But creating wealth, which is what "competition" is ultimately supposed to be about in the economic sense, requires positive sum exchanges. Positive sum means everybody wins. That's what I was expecting the rest of the article to be about; but it isn't. It's just about a different kind of zero sum, where you make the competitors lose by changing the rules instead of by playing better than them within the existing rules.
- enigmatic0202 6y ago
  Competition is often interpreted as going toe-to-toe rather than rethinking the game. As for positive-sum, Shopify has provided that. By making it easier for entrepreneurs to start a online store, they’ve created another distribution channel for them beyond the Amazon status quo. They chose the opposite of aggregation.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > As for positive-sum, Shopify has provided that. By making it easier for entrepreneurs to start a online store, they’ve created another distribution channel for them beyond the Amazon status quo. Is the expectation that this will end up creating more online business overall, or that Shopify will just end up taking some portion of Amazon's existing business? The former is positive sum. The latter is not--whatever Shopify gains, Amazon loses.
    - enigmatic0202 6y ago
      The former. Good feedback! I’ll work on making this more clear.

pdonis 6y ago

> I was trying to express that the mentality of competition constrains us to what’s already been done. That’s why it’s harmful. That doesn't seem to me like a mentality of competition. It seems to me like a mentality of just going with the status quo. Competition in no way requires going with the status quo. If you can out-compete others by changing the rules, competition tells you to change the rules. David was competing with Goliath; David won the competition by changing the rules. To the extent competition is harmful, it's harmful because, as noted at the start of the article, it tends to foster a zero-sum mentality: the only way I can win is for you to lose. But creating wealth, which is what "competition" is ultimately supposed to be about in the economic sense, requires positive sum exchanges. Positive sum means everybody wins. That's what I was expecting the rest of the article to be about; but it isn't. It's just about a different kind of zero sum, where you make the competitors lose by changing the rules instead of by playing better than them within the existing rules.

enigmatic0202 6y ago
Competition is often interpreted as going toe-to-toe rather than rethinking the game. As for positive-sum, Shopify has provided that. By making it easier for entrepreneurs to start a online store, they’ve created another distribution channel for them beyond the Amazon status quo. They chose the opposite of aggregation.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > As for positive-sum, Shopify has provided that. By making it easier for entrepreneurs to start a online store, they’ve created another distribution channel for them beyond the Amazon status quo. Is the expectation that this will end up creating more online business overall, or that Shopify will just end up taking some portion of Amazon's existing business? The former is positive sum. The latter is not--whatever Shopify gains, Amazon loses.
  - enigmatic0202 6y ago
    The former. Good feedback! I’ll work on making this more clear.