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Alternative take: consumer behaviour that demands complex integrated products incentivizes the formation of large corporate bodies that can marshall the many s

by jl6 6y ago

Alternative take: consumer behaviour that demands complex integrated products incentivizes the formation of large corporate bodies that can marshall the many skills and resources required to make them, with the economies of scale that make them viable. Semi-facetious summary: there’s not a lot of demand for local, organic, artisan all-terrain robot packhorses.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
That's true in the case of Boston Dynamics. Definitely seems less true in regards to a company like Crunchy Roll though.
- jl6 6y ago
  It’s totally applicable. Crunchy Roll are a media aggregator - the more aggregated a service is, the better value. Consider consumer unwillingness to subscribe to 5-6 different streaming services, but toleration of having 2-3. In fact, consumers would prefer just to have one that does everything. In other words, a direct connection between consumer demand and monopoly creation.
beyondcompute 6y ago
Another take. I think that one of the forces that promote “monopolization” on the internet at least might be the issue of trust. It’s harder to trust “smaller” (or less known) businesses on the internet and vendors on platforms like Ebay, Etsy, Airbnb. Roughly speaking there’s quite a lot of scam and low quality products/services out there. Things work differently offline where physical location can in many situations create more sense of trustworthiness even for smaller businesses. Online – your brand is extremely important. And bigger companies tend to have better established brands. Just a speculation (and not very related to BD in particular but to a situation where internet got overtaken by corporations instead of becoming that decentralized paradise we once hoped for).
andbberger 6y ago
Do you actually believe that?
postingpals 6y ago
But... I don't disagree with this. This is exactly what is happening, and it is yet still creating monopolies. Just because it is what people want does not mean it is a good thing.

by jl6 6y ago

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

That's true in the case of Boston Dynamics. Definitely seems less true in regards to a company like Crunchy Roll though.

jl6 6y ago
It’s totally applicable. Crunchy Roll are a media aggregator - the more aggregated a service is, the better value. Consider consumer unwillingness to subscribe to 5-6 different streaming services, but toleration of having 2-3. In fact, consumers would prefer just to have one that does everything. In other words, a direct connection between consumer demand and monopoly creation.

beyondcompute 6y ago

Another take. I think that one of the forces that promote “monopolization” on the internet at least might be the issue of trust. It’s harder to trust “smaller” (or less known) businesses on the internet and vendors on platforms like Ebay, Etsy, Airbnb. Roughly speaking there’s quite a lot of scam and low quality products/services out there. Things work differently offline where physical location can in many situations create more sense of trustworthiness even for smaller businesses. Online – your brand is extremely important. And bigger companies tend to have better established brands. Just a speculation (and not very related to BD in particular but to a situation where internet got overtaken by corporations instead of becoming that decentralized paradise we once hoped for).

andbberger 6y ago

Do you actually believe that?

postingpals 6y ago

But... I don't disagree with this. This is exactly what is happening, and it is yet still creating monopolies. Just because it is what people want does not mean it is a good thing.