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> As the surface area of new software markets plateaus, tech will transition towards a consolidation era. Do you think this is true? We are seeing more tech co

> As the surface area of new software markets plateaus, tech will transition towards a consolidation era. Do you think this is true? We are seeing more tech companies than ever before. But that could just be due to the pandemic and insanely high amount of money in the market. If consolidation happens, innovation will plummet. This always happens. Any oil-based company hasn't innovated in 20 years. Most of the consolidated industries have little or no innovation. As any product gets more complicated, consolidation does happen and innovation does plummet. Think: 1) Web browsers: Ruled by Google and Safari now (+ Firefox so HN won't be offended, although they have 3.6% and it's going to keep declining over time). We have not seen any innovation in browsers in such a long time. 2) Operating Systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux haven't really done anything new in the last 5 years. Win+Mac just keep adding more "telemetry", but no innovation 3) Cloud: it's obviously really complex. It's consolidated. It's innovating today, but seeing the trajectory of browsers, OS and other products, innovation will stagnate there as well. Should we just take it for granted that tech is supposed to be consolidated? New fields in tech like crypto, mobile are still very active but are they also just moving towards consolidation?

BlueTemplar 5y ago
Well, yes, it's the eternal cycle... Funny that you would take the example of oil companies : it was the small tight oil startups that did the latest round of innovation (in hydraulic fracturing, though it was a "take already existing innovations and integrate them" kind of innovation) and captured that market (even though they never became profitable as an industry), and some of the "7 sisters" themselves come from the antimonopoly forcible splitting of Standard Oil into 34 companies... (when the forced splitting of the GAFAMs ?)

BlueTemplar 5y ago

Well, yes, it's the eternal cycle... Funny that you would take the example of oil companies : it was the small tight oil startups that did the latest round of innovation (in hydraulic fracturing, though it was a "take already existing innovations and integrate them" kind of innovation) and captured that market (even though they never became profitable as an industry), and some of the "7 sisters" themselves come from the antimonopoly forcible splitting of Standard Oil into 34 companies... (when the forced splitting of the GAFAMs ?)