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It's not yet clear which venture will have a greater impact on the world. People here consistently underestimate the significance of democratizing the media.

by paul 14y ago

waterlesscloud 14y ago
SpaceX is part of the first wave in its field, Instagram is at least second wave of democratizing media.
mkramlich 14y ago
In general, I agree. In this specific case, I disagree. I'll confidently bet that Instagram will be "integrated" or forgotten in a few years, relegated to the dustbin of ephemeral "one feature" companies that briefly caught on with hipsters before winning the startup lottery. Meanwhile, SpaceX will still be going strong, revolutionizing private space travel and space cargo delivery, and possibly have achieved tangible milestones toward the first manned voyage to Mars. One company is not much more than an iPhone camera app with a web backend for sharing, is cheap to do, and something that many thousands of developers could do well. The other is doing rocket science, costs hundreds of millions plus, and is staffed by a team of folks of a kind where few can do it well, if at all -- and especially, it now appears, also do cheaply. Humans had tons of pre-existing ways to share photos and "apply cool filters" before Instagram came along. Humanity has very few ways of getting into space (ie, rocket companies), and now SpaceX is one of them. And I respect the significance of democratizing media -- but I felt it was very well democratized in dozens of ways before & without Instagram. And don't even get me started on Gmail. (kidding!)
- amirmc 14y ago
  Well put. I think monetary value and impact don't necessarily correlate. One could have an amazing, long-term impact on the world without it being reflected in 'price'. Reminds me of some of the recent Valve stories, specifically the anecdote about Doom being the most installed piece of software [1]. [1] For those that didn't know this, see the post below and scroll down to 'Valve is different' http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-what-its-like-and-what-im-doing-2/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-w...

It's not yet clear which venture will have a greater impact on the world. People here consistently underestimate the significance of democratizing the media.

by paul 14y ago

It's not yet clear which venture will have a greater impact on the world. People here consistently underestimate the significance of democratizing the media.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

SpaceX is part of the first wave in its field, Instagram is at least second wave of democratizing media.

mkramlich 14y ago

In general, I agree. In this specific case, I disagree. I'll confidently bet that Instagram will be "integrated" or forgotten in a few years, relegated to the dustbin of ephemeral "one feature" companies that briefly caught on with hipsters before winning the startup lottery. Meanwhile, SpaceX will still be going strong, revolutionizing private space travel and space cargo delivery, and possibly have achieved tangible milestones toward the first manned voyage to Mars. One company is not much more than an iPhone camera app with a web backend for sharing, is cheap to do, and something that many thousands of developers could do well. The other is doing rocket science, costs hundreds of millions plus, and is staffed by a team of folks of a kind where few can do it well, if at all -- and especially, it now appears, also do cheaply. Humans had tons of pre-existing ways to share photos and "apply cool filters" before Instagram came along. Humanity has very few ways of getting into space (ie, rocket companies), and now SpaceX is one of them. And I respect the significance of democratizing media -- but I felt it was very well democratized in dozens of ways before & without Instagram. And don't even get me started on Gmail. (kidding!)

amirmc 14y ago
Well put. I think monetary value and impact don't necessarily correlate. One could have an amazing, long-term impact on the world without it being reflected in 'price'. Reminds me of some of the recent Valve stories, specifically the anecdote about Doom being the most installed piece of software [1]. [1] For those that didn't know this, see the post below and scroll down to 'Valve is different' http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-what-its-like-and-what-im-doing-2/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-w...