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Ask HN: Maybe they don't want my help.....

3 points by diminium 15y ago

At what point do you just throw in the towel and say to yourself "this industry just doesn't want to be helped" just to watch later as your predictions become true? (By the way, your not Steve Jobs. You don't have his ability to convince anyone of anything.) As a big example of this, let's say you have this cool way to distribute stuff like music/media/periodicals several years ago. You figured out this great way of distributing media and a good way to make money off it to an industry you see will need this. To make a long story short, after spending several years on this, everyone in the industry laughed at you and your idea of helping them make more money is in trouble because nobody there wants to buy your product or services because they see no need. At what point do you throw in the towel and stop trying to be "nice" while help them as well as you become more successful? At what point do you become the "big evil bad guy" creating that new technology that instead of helping them create a bigger, cooler, bigger business that instead starts destroying their core and they start sending lawyers and politicians after you?

kls 15y ago
If your product can revolutionize a market and the existing players in the market have rejected it, then by all means you should try to create a new market even if it destroys the existing market. Life is about evolutions, and just because someone does not see the next step in the process does not mean that you are being "big evil bad guy" by doing it without them. Even if it destroys them in the process. Take for example the RIAA, they rejected all kind of early solutions to the fact that their model was changing. Rather they adopted a wait and see and then rely on legal challenges to stall the market strategy. As such they spent far more money and lost far more power, than they would have had, had they chosen to participate in better ways to conduct business. Does this mean that companies like Napster and Apple where evil in bringing their products to market, no it just means a business man saw a better way. It like the quote about the customer wanting a better buggy when the automobile was invented. Some times people either through not wanting change or other factors don't see the advantage of a better way. But that does not mean that the automobile companies where some how evil for killing the stage coach business. It just means a business man saw a market and others did not, to their peril.

3 points by diminium 15y ago

kls 15y ago

If your product can revolutionize a market and the existing players in the market have rejected it, then by all means you should try to create a new market even if it destroys the existing market. Life is about evolutions, and just because someone does not see the next step in the process does not mean that you are being "big evil bad guy" by doing it without them. Even if it destroys them in the process. Take for example the RIAA, they rejected all kind of early solutions to the fact that their model was changing. Rather they adopted a wait and see and then rely on legal challenges to stall the market strategy. As such they spent far more money and lost far more power, than they would have had, had they chosen to participate in better ways to conduct business. Does this mean that companies like Napster and Apple where evil in bringing their products to market, no it just means a business man saw a better way. It like the quote about the customer wanting a better buggy when the automobile was invented. Some times people either through not wanting change or other factors don't see the advantage of a better way. But that does not mean that the automobile companies where some how evil for killing the stage coach business. It just means a business man saw a market and others did not, to their peril.