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Voting with your wallet is also a good thing to do, but if you expect to send some signal to a company that way to imply that they should change their behaviour
by jbay808 6y ago
Voting with your wallet is also a good thing to do, but if you expect to send some signal to a company that way to imply that they should change their behaviour, you have to realize that you're communicating over a very noisy channel. All they'll notice -- if they notice -- is that sales have decreased, and they won't know the reason.
EG. you: "I hate smart TVs! I'll keep my old dumb TV!" --> them: "Our smart TVs aren't doing well, maybe we should make them smarter?"
Hand wringing has a good chance of at least delivering your message.
- andromeduck 6y agoThat's where entrepreneurs and innovators come in - it's literally the whole idea of industry disruption.
- jbay808 6y agoThat's an even noisier channel! It has its place, but don't expect it to solve all such problems. Unless they're disgruntled HP employees, they don't even have access to the declining sales figures, just their own frustration with printers to motivate a story for investors. And most people who have the know-how to launch a new printer company know that they'll get a better return on their time by doing something else. Lastly, "barriers to entry" are real things. It's not impossible to overcome them (eg. SpaceX) but you need to make an exceptional case to try. How many people do you know who buy their office equipment off of Kickstarter? Or do you want to try pitching a VC on outcompeting Samsung at flat-panel televisions, and see what they tell you?
- novok 6y agoBusinesses also track competitor sales, and love to copy what successful competitors are doing, so it does show up.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoWhat capitalists seem to love more is buying the good business and making it crap too so one has no choice but to buy a product that will break sooner.