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It's difficult to say in hindsight, because most "good ideas" seem obvious after the fact. Eg Twitch seems like such an obvious idea now (but I don't think my b

It's difficult to say in hindsight, because most "good ideas" seem obvious after the fact. Eg Twitch seems like such an obvious idea now (but I don't think my bad bet meter would have given Twitch a good score in 2008 - why would people watch other people play games instead of, you know, playing the game themselves?). In all honesty, I don't think I would have predicted the meteoric success of a search engine or social media. Who wants an app that just deletes pictures from your phone? Why would I trust a stranger enough to get into their car? The Wright brothers sound a bit wonky in the head, trying to get something that heavy to fly. Etc.

Retric 6y ago
Odd, I thought Twitch seemed like a great idea at the time. Starcraft already had multiple successful TV shows in South Korea. Which made it clear there was a market for people watching others play video games. As a teen I had multiple times had a room full of other kids watching me play video games so it wasn’t just a question of competitive sports. Finally, the focus was different many people had been making money for years entertaining over webcams, it’s ripe for stalker behavior. I will agree with you on Uber though for economic and regulatory reasons. Taxi medallions where created because of the external costs of operating a Taxi so just ignoring that system seems unlikely to work. Similarly without subsides drivers and passengers are going to be willing to jump ship. That said, carpool lanes and Taxi where a thing which covers the stranger angle. Economically CitySprinter (much earlier startup) and Uber had the same basic issue in my mind, the overhead of operating internationally needs some significant economies of scale to work out.
jcranmer 6y ago
> I don't think my bad bet meter would have given Twitch a good score in 2008 - why would people watch other people play games instead of, you know, playing the game themselves? Let's Plays were already an established format before Twitch's predecessor started. Indeed, Twitch was spun off its predecessor site precisely because the gaming section was overwhelmingly popular. > Why would I trust a stranger enough to get into their car? It wasn't until I went to college that I discovered that slugging wasn't a common thing. What's slugging? It's the commuting practice of a driver rolling up to a line of people, saying "I'm going to the Pentagon, I've got three seats; who wants to come with?" and three people peel off the line into the car. > The Wright brothers sound a bit wonky in the head, trying to get something that heavy to fly. The Wright brothers were the first to succeed of a large group of people attempting to build working airplanes. It was a technological race going on, and the main difficulty was actually in getting a compact engine working that could provide sufficient forward speed to produce lift. Glider technology was already decently accomplished by the time of the first powered flight, which is the milestone the Wright brothers achieved.
- eindiran 6y ago
  > Let's Plays were already an established format before Twitch's predecessor started. Sure, there are people who are early adopters of anything, including plenty of things that never pan out. My mom certainly hadn't heard of Let's Plays in 2008, but she can name a few streamers now. To have predicted the success of Twitch is to say with a straight face that in the mid 2000s you thought that people who absolutely did not play games then (or even consider it) would regularly watch other people play games; Twitch probably has more concurrent users right now than there are people who had heard of a Let's Play before 2008[0]. To be clear, I'm not saying that you didn't predict it: I'm saying that realizing that Twitch would be as successful as it is today is uncommon. > The Wright brothers were the first to succeed of a large group of people attempting to build working airplanes. Agreed. However, at the time the Washington Post famously opined on the Wright brothers that "It is a fact that man can't fly". A lot of the mockery they faced is probably apocryphal at this point, but certainly many people thought that powered flight was unlikely/impossible. Similarly, many of the early adopters of transistors were laughed at because vacuum tubes were the clearly superior choice [1]. My point here isn't that no one believed; some people have done a great job of reliably picking the right horse. My point is that for many innovative ideas, more people doubt than believe. And that (with the benefit of hindsight) it's easy to imagine you knew the right horse from the beginning. [0] https://kotaku.com/who-invented-lets-play-videos-1702390484 https://kotaku.com/who-invented-lets-play-videos-1702390484 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4XknGqr3Bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4XknGqr3Bo
  - Retric 6y ago
    Early transistors sucked. Which makes it really difficult to separate engineering decisions based on current available technology with predictions of future advancement. At the time people where well aware of all the issues with vacuum tubes, and potentially based on Quantium mechanics transistors should be able sidestep most of them. Which is why so much money was spent on improving transistors despite the mature competition and transistor adoption was so rapid. Similarly, many different flying machines pre dated the Wright brothers including balloons, heavier than air gliders, and freaking kites. The problem was the crap engines of the time, which is why so many heavier than air aircraft so many inventors appeared at the same time. And why we don’t use anything like the Wright brothers aircraft. PS: The actual first heavier than air aircraft is probably a Bamboo-copter from ~400BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo-copter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo-copter. Though man lifting kites where likely the first useful heavier than air aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite

Retric 6y ago

Odd, I thought Twitch seemed like a great idea at the time. Starcraft already had multiple successful TV shows in South Korea. Which made it clear there was a market for people watching others play video games. As a teen I had multiple times had a room full of other kids watching me play video games so it wasn’t just a question of competitive sports. Finally, the focus was different many people had been making money for years entertaining over webcams, it’s ripe for stalker behavior. I will agree with you on Uber though for economic and regulatory reasons. Taxi medallions where created because of the external costs of operating a Taxi so just ignoring that system seems unlikely to work. Similarly without subsides drivers and passengers are going to be willing to jump ship. That said, carpool lanes and Taxi where a thing which covers the stranger angle. Economically CitySprinter (much earlier startup) and Uber had the same basic issue in my mind, the overhead of operating internationally needs some significant economies of scale to work out.

jcranmer 6y ago

> I don't think my bad bet meter would have given Twitch a good score in 2008 - why would people watch other people play games instead of, you know, playing the game themselves? Let's Plays were already an established format before Twitch's predecessor started. Indeed, Twitch was spun off its predecessor site precisely because the gaming section was overwhelmingly popular. > Why would I trust a stranger enough to get into their car? It wasn't until I went to college that I discovered that slugging wasn't a common thing. What's slugging? It's the commuting practice of a driver rolling up to a line of people, saying "I'm going to the Pentagon, I've got three seats; who wants to come with?" and three people peel off the line into the car. > The Wright brothers sound a bit wonky in the head, trying to get something that heavy to fly. The Wright brothers were the first to succeed of a large group of people attempting to build working airplanes. It was a technological race going on, and the main difficulty was actually in getting a compact engine working that could provide sufficient forward speed to produce lift. Glider technology was already decently accomplished by the time of the first powered flight, which is the milestone the Wright brothers achieved.

eindiran 6y ago
> Let's Plays were already an established format before Twitch's predecessor started. Sure, there are people who are early adopters of anything, including plenty of things that never pan out. My mom certainly hadn't heard of Let's Plays in 2008, but she can name a few streamers now. To have predicted the success of Twitch is to say with a straight face that in the mid 2000s you thought that people who absolutely did not play games then (or even consider it) would regularly watch other people play games; Twitch probably has more concurrent users right now than there are people who had heard of a Let's Play before 2008[0]. To be clear, I'm not saying that you didn't predict it: I'm saying that realizing that Twitch would be as successful as it is today is uncommon. > The Wright brothers were the first to succeed of a large group of people attempting to build working airplanes. Agreed. However, at the time the Washington Post famously opined on the Wright brothers that "It is a fact that man can't fly". A lot of the mockery they faced is probably apocryphal at this point, but certainly many people thought that powered flight was unlikely/impossible. Similarly, many of the early adopters of transistors were laughed at because vacuum tubes were the clearly superior choice [1]. My point here isn't that no one believed; some people have done a great job of reliably picking the right horse. My point is that for many innovative ideas, more people doubt than believe. And that (with the benefit of hindsight) it's easy to imagine you knew the right horse from the beginning. [0] https://kotaku.com/who-invented-lets-play-videos-1702390484 https://kotaku.com/who-invented-lets-play-videos-1702390484 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4XknGqr3Bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4XknGqr3Bo
- Retric 6y ago
  Early transistors sucked. Which makes it really difficult to separate engineering decisions based on current available technology with predictions of future advancement. At the time people where well aware of all the issues with vacuum tubes, and potentially based on Quantium mechanics transistors should be able sidestep most of them. Which is why so much money was spent on improving transistors despite the mature competition and transistor adoption was so rapid. Similarly, many different flying machines pre dated the Wright brothers including balloons, heavier than air gliders, and freaking kites. The problem was the crap engines of the time, which is why so many heavier than air aircraft so many inventors appeared at the same time. And why we don’t use anything like the Wright brothers aircraft. PS: The actual first heavier than air aircraft is probably a Bamboo-copter from ~400BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo-copter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo-copter. Though man lifting kites where likely the first useful heavier than air aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-lifting_kite