5 ms·

Reading through the comments here, it is really fascinating how regular humans used to just “invent” things and create whole businesses around them. Like, the i

Reading through the comments here, it is really fascinating how regular humans used to just “invent” things and create whole businesses around them. Like, the idea that some guy invented the duckpin pin setter, patented it, and managed to make enough of them for duckpin bowling alleys that it is still regionally popular today, is kind of wild. I feel like it doesn’t (and maybe couldn’t) happen today at the same scale.

tiagod 4y ago
I think it's still common in industrial machinery and such specialised things.
riskpreneurship 4y ago
The pie was smaller back in the day, but it was sliced more evenly. If real income had kept up with productivity gains, we might still live in a world where ordinary people could afford to invent and patent expensive new forms of recreation. It still happens, but only the extremely wealthy can participate in their devopment. Water-jet hoverboards, VR, green homesteading... I personally have prototyped an idea for a small, cheap, flexible consumer product that I would love to build and sell, but I don't have 7 figures to burn if it doesn't work out - I can't even afford a house on a low 6-figure salary, nevermind saving enough to start a business! So it will remain a pipe dream until some large organization with loads of capital picks the low-hanging fruit.
- robg 4y ago
  Have you considered a Kickstarter to test the market?
  - Tao3300 4y ago
    > small, cheap, flexible consumer product Kickstarter is like the fastest route to getting undercut by an imitation for something like that.
  - riskpreneurship 4y ago
    From what I've seen, that's a good way to give the drop-ship economy-of-scale undercutters a head start. Honestly, I think something like as-seen-on-TV would work better for a novel widget idea. You could sell an initial run all at once, and fund future development if it turned out to be popular: I guess the modern equivalent would be Instagram or YouTube ads. But I don't have enough capital to build up enough stock for a launch, when the runway for clones is about 4 months from the point where a mainland factory catches wind of your idea. The incentive to actually implement and sell an idea once you see that it can be done cheaply and easily doesn't exist in our current economy, unless you already have so much capital that you don't need to work. It's a frustrating catch-22.
- Tao3300 4y ago
  > Water-jet hoverboards, VR, green homesteading... I know I'd rather have weird bowling than any of those, but we don't have it in my region.
015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago
Part of the reason, I think, is that the modern talent extraction system didn't exist then. Think of standardized testing and the education industrial complex as a kind of strip mining operation. Many of the most capable people are identified before they're adults and then relocated to certain specific institutions, locations, and careers. The result is that the places and subcultures they leave behind fail to thrive in a thousand small ways, the cumulative effects of which are obvious. In 1900, lots of the people who today are 10x programmers in SF were farmers and small business owners in small towns or rural areas. When you look back at some of the things they figured out and built, you see a level of talent that most of their modern successors lack.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  A big factor is modern government corruption. Try starting a restaurant in SF vs getting a job as a programmer. https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/how-san-francisco-s-lengthy-permitting-process-enables-corruption/article_0f3edfb6-7e37-5e27-8557-efd257a4e4c0.html https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/how-san-francisco-s-leng... https://sfist.com/2021/06/25/disgraced-ex-dbi-inspector-approved-shady-ridiculously-unsafe-permits-all-over-town/ https://sfist.com/2021/06/25/disgraced-ex-dbi-inspector-appr... https://sf.eater.com/2017/6/27/15733554/cost-open-restaurant-robin-adam-tortosa-san-francisco https://sf.eater.com/2017/6/27/15733554/cost-open-restaurant...
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    Corruption was WAY worse back then. Hell, the examples provided are way less crazy than graft scandals and mafia wars from the time period you are looking at with rose tinted glasses [0] [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_graft_trials https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_graft_trials [1] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-corruption-machine-humming-along-before-6378193.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-corruption-... [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
rcme 4y ago
Isn't that pretty much what a startup is? Someone has an idea, they create a product, and then sell it to people.

tiagod 4y ago

I think it's still common in industrial machinery and such specialised things.

riskpreneurship 4y ago

The pie was smaller back in the day, but it was sliced more evenly. If real income had kept up with productivity gains, we might still live in a world where ordinary people could afford to invent and patent expensive new forms of recreation. It still happens, but only the extremely wealthy can participate in their devopment. Water-jet hoverboards, VR, green homesteading... I personally have prototyped an idea for a small, cheap, flexible consumer product that I would love to build and sell, but I don't have 7 figures to burn if it doesn't work out - I can't even afford a house on a low 6-figure salary, nevermind saving enough to start a business! So it will remain a pipe dream until some large organization with loads of capital picks the low-hanging fruit.

robg 4y ago
Have you considered a Kickstarter to test the market?
- Tao3300 4y ago
  > small, cheap, flexible consumer product Kickstarter is like the fastest route to getting undercut by an imitation for something like that.
- riskpreneurship 4y ago
  From what I've seen, that's a good way to give the drop-ship economy-of-scale undercutters a head start. Honestly, I think something like as-seen-on-TV would work better for a novel widget idea. You could sell an initial run all at once, and fund future development if it turned out to be popular: I guess the modern equivalent would be Instagram or YouTube ads. But I don't have enough capital to build up enough stock for a launch, when the runway for clones is about 4 months from the point where a mainland factory catches wind of your idea. The incentive to actually implement and sell an idea once you see that it can be done cheaply and easily doesn't exist in our current economy, unless you already have so much capital that you don't need to work. It's a frustrating catch-22.
Tao3300 4y ago
> Water-jet hoverboards, VR, green homesteading... I know I'd rather have weird bowling than any of those, but we don't have it in my region.

015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago

Part of the reason, I think, is that the modern talent extraction system didn't exist then. Think of standardized testing and the education industrial complex as a kind of strip mining operation. Many of the most capable people are identified before they're adults and then relocated to certain specific institutions, locations, and careers. The result is that the places and subcultures they leave behind fail to thrive in a thousand small ways, the cumulative effects of which are obvious. In 1900, lots of the people who today are 10x programmers in SF were farmers and small business owners in small towns or rural areas. When you look back at some of the things they figured out and built, you see a level of talent that most of their modern successors lack.

cscurmudgeon 4y ago
A big factor is modern government corruption. Try starting a restaurant in SF vs getting a job as a programmer. https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/how-san-francisco-s-lengthy-permitting-process-enables-corruption/article_0f3edfb6-7e37-5e27-8557-efd257a4e4c0.html https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/how-san-francisco-s-leng... https://sfist.com/2021/06/25/disgraced-ex-dbi-inspector-approved-shady-ridiculously-unsafe-permits-all-over-town/ https://sfist.com/2021/06/25/disgraced-ex-dbi-inspector-appr... https://sf.eater.com/2017/6/27/15733554/cost-open-restaurant-robin-adam-tortosa-san-francisco https://sf.eater.com/2017/6/27/15733554/cost-open-restaurant...
- alephnerd 4y ago
  Corruption was WAY worse back then. Hell, the examples provided are way less crazy than graft scandals and mafia wars from the time period you are looking at with rose tinted glasses [0] [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_graft_trials https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_graft_trials [1] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-corruption-machine-humming-along-before-6378193.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-corruption-... [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago

rcme 4y ago

Isn't that pretty much what a startup is? Someone has an idea, they create a product, and then sell it to people.