4 ms·

I would be curious to know what makes you think that technological progress is happening because of competition. It might as well be despite competition, I see

I would be curious to know what makes you think that technological progress is happening because of competition. It might as well be despite competition, I see no rational way of telling for sure, as there are too many interdependent factors at work. But I will say this: the academic world as I've been witnessing it is a world built on cooperation, and it seems to me to be the real driver of strong innovation. Another lucrative social website is not "strong innovation", but a new research algorithm that pushes the boundaries of what we can do, is. One is driven by profit, the other by curiosity. One happens because of competition, the other because of cooperation.

icebraining 14y ago
There's plenty of competition in academia, and plenty of cooperation in the industry. And they cooperate between each other a lot, too. And while lucrative social websites are not innovation per se, you should consider they may be funding the next SpaceX.
paulsutter 14y ago
Academia is rife with competition. As they say, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. The open source community and Wikipedia are great examples of cooperation. The biggest advances in business are usually by people who are completely focused on customer needs and ignore competition (google up until their google+ fascination, Elon musk, apple prior to android's success. Note how google hasn't made any advances from their competition with Facebook, and how Apple hasnt advanced the iPhone much since they started competing with Android).
fauigerzigerk 14y ago
I don't believe that competition is the primary driver of innovation either. But competition is an inevitable consequence of comparability. If you cannot compare outcomes of different approaches to the same problem you cannot improve the solutions. I also think that competition mitigates some social developments that lead to stagnation, like cronyism and lazy establishments holding on to resources without delivering any results. But at the end of the day I think you are right to dispute the popular notion that somehow a cut throat environment that pits everyone against everyone else is the most conducive environment for innovation. It just causes fear and fear makes stupid.

icebraining 14y ago

There's plenty of competition in academia, and plenty of cooperation in the industry. And they cooperate between each other a lot, too. And while lucrative social websites are not innovation per se, you should consider they may be funding the next SpaceX.

paulsutter 14y ago

Academia is rife with competition. As they say, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. The open source community and Wikipedia are great examples of cooperation. The biggest advances in business are usually by people who are completely focused on customer needs and ignore competition (google up until their google+ fascination, Elon musk, apple prior to android's success. Note how google hasn't made any advances from their competition with Facebook, and how Apple hasnt advanced the iPhone much since they started competing with Android).

fauigerzigerk 14y ago

I don't believe that competition is the primary driver of innovation either. But competition is an inevitable consequence of comparability. If you cannot compare outcomes of different approaches to the same problem you cannot improve the solutions. I also think that competition mitigates some social developments that lead to stagnation, like cronyism and lazy establishments holding on to resources without delivering any results. But at the end of the day I think you are right to dispute the popular notion that somehow a cut throat environment that pits everyone against everyone else is the most conducive environment for innovation. It just causes fear and fear makes stupid.