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Today I learned that Sears founded Prodigy! Amazing how far that company has fallen; they were sort of a force to be reckoned with in the 70's and 80's with Cr

Today I learned that Sears founded Prodigy! Amazing how far that company has fallen; they were sort of a force to be reckoned with in the 70's and 80's with Craftsman and Allstate and Discover and Kenmore and a bunch of other things, and now they're basically dead as far as I can tell.

htrp 1y ago
Blame short sighted investors asking Sears to "focus"
- dehrmann 1y ago
  They weren't wrong. Its core business in what is still a viable-enough sector collapsed. Or if it were truly well-managed, running an ISP and a retailer should have been enough insight to be Amazon.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - svnt 1y ago
    Timing is a difficult variable.
  - KerrAvon 1y ago
    It wasn't possible for them to be well managed at the time it mattered. Sears was loaded with debt by private equity ghouls; same story for almost all defunct brick and mortar businesses; Amazon was a factor, but private equity is what actually destroyed them.
    - frmersdog 1y ago
      And, knowing Jeff Bezos' private equity origins, one could be forgiven for entertaining the thought that none of this was an accident. Just don't be an idiot and, you know, give voice to that thought or anything.
      - ProjectArcturis 1y ago
        Are you suggesting that Jeff Bezos somehow convinced all his PE buddies to tank Sears (and their own loans to it) in order for him to build Amazon with less competition? Because, well, no offense, but that seems like a remarkably naive understanding of capital markets and individual motivations. Especially when it's well documented how Eddie Lampert's libertarian beliefs caused him to run it into the ground.
      - chollida1 1y ago
        > And, knowing Jeff Bezos' private equity origins He doesn't have private equity origins as far as I know. He came from DE Shaw, a very well respected and long running hedge fund.
    - andrew_lettuce 1y ago
      Thank you for bringing this up. Sears really didn't have a choice, they were a victim of the most pernicious LBO, Gordon Gecko-style strip mining nonsense on the PE spectrum. All private equity is not the same but after seeing two PE deals from the inside (one a leveraged buy out) and another VC one with the "grow at insane place" playbook I think I prefer the naked and aligned greed of the VC model; PE destroyed both of the other companies while the VC one was already doomed.
  - mikestew 1y ago
    They weren't wrong. Evidence suggests that maybe they were. "Focusing" obviously didn't work. But at the end of the day, it was private equity and the hubris of a CEO who wasn't nearly as clever as he'd like to have thought he was.
  - lotsoweiners 1y ago
    I worked at Sears at the time when Amazon first started becoming a household name. I for the life of me couldn’t understand why they didn’t make a copycat site called the Sears Catalog Online. But then I think about it and management wanted salesmanship because selling maintenance agreements was their cash cow. Low margin sales won in the long term hence we have Walmart and Amazon as the biggest retailers.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Likely standard management failure. Sears got burned badly when it put its catalog online on Prodigy in the 80's, so obviously online sales were doomed to failure.
dh2022 1y ago
My favorite anecdote about Sears is from Starbucks current HQs - the HQs used to be a warehouse for Sears. Before renovation the first floor walls next to the elevators used to have Sears' "commitment to customers" (or something like that). To me it read like it was written by Amazon decades earlier. Something about how Sears promises that customers will be 100% satisfied with the purchase, and if for whatever reason that is not the case customers can return the purchase back to Sears and Sears will pay for the return transportation charges.
- tombert 1y ago
  Craftsman tools have almost felt like a life-hack sometimes; their no-questions-asked warranties were just incredible. My dad broke a Craftsman shovel once that he had owned for four years, took it to Sears, and it was replaced immediately, no questions asked. I broke a socket wrench that I had owned for a year and had the same story. I haven't tested these warranties since Craftsman was sold to Black and Decker, but when it was still owned by Sears I almost exclusively bought Craftsman tools as a result of their wonderful warranties.
  - mindcrime 1y ago
    FWIW, I bought a Craftsman 1/4" drive ratchet/socket set at a Lowes Home Improvement store last year, and when I got it home and started messing with it, the ratchet jammed up immediately (before even being used on any actual fastener). I drove back over there the next day and the lady at the service desk took a quick look, said "go get another one off the shelf and come back here." I did, and by the time I got back she'd finished whatever paperwork needed to be done, handed me some $whatever and said "have a nice day." Maybe not quite as hassle free as in years past, but I found the experience acceptable enough.
    - tracker1 1y ago
      I think that's as much about Lowes as it is Craftsman... I don't think Craftsman tools have been particularly well build, just that they had and are able to have enough margins to have a no questions asked policy... it probably helps that a lot of the materials are completely and easily recyclable.
esaym 1y ago
There were quite a few small ISP's in the 1990's. Even Bill Gothard[0] had one. [0]https://web.archive.org/web/19990208003742/http://characterlink.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990208003742/http://characterl...
- hollerith 1y ago
  Prodigy predates ISPs (internet service providers). Before the web had matured a little in 1993 the internet was too technically challenging to interest most consumers except maybe for email, and Prodigy was formed in 1984 -- and although it offered email, it was walled-garden email: a Prodigy user could not exchange email with the internet till the mid-1990s at which time Prodigy might have become an ISP for a few years before going out of business.
- tombert 1y ago
  At a previous job I worked under a guy who started his own ISP in the early 90’s. I would have loved to have been part of that scene but I was only like four when that happened.
- jstgunderscore 1y ago
  [dead]
kens 1y ago
On the topic of how Sears used to be high-tech: back in 1981, when IBM introduced the IBM PC, it was the first time that they needed to sell computers through retail. So they partnered with Sears, along with the Computerland chain of computer stores, since Sears was considered a reasonable place for a businessperson to buy a computer. To plan this, meetings were held at the Sears Tower, which was the world's tallest building at the time.
- NordSteve 1y ago
  Bought my IBM PC from Sears back in the day. Still have the receipt.
  - zenonu 1y ago
    Worthy if its own hacker news post. Would love to see it.
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      Yup I agree GP. today is the first time I heard of sears and the comment about the sears towers and ibm literally gave me goosebumps.
- duderific 1y ago
  Wow, I hadn't thought about Computerland for quite a while. That was my go-to to kill some time at the mall when I was a teen.
gcanyon 1y ago
:-) Then it's going to blow your mind that CompuServe (while not founded by them) was a product of H&R Block.
matthewn 1y ago
For more on this -- and how Sears had everything it needed (and more) to be what Amazon became -- see this comment from a 2007 MetaFilter thread: https://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Decline#1742245 https://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Declin...
- fragmede 1y ago
  The untold story, is the names of individuals fighting office politics that lead to that (not) happening.

htrp 1y ago

Blame short sighted investors asking Sears to "focus"

dehrmann 1y ago
They weren't wrong. Its core business in what is still a viable-enough sector collapsed. Or if it were truly well-managed, running an ISP and a retailer should have been enough insight to be Amazon.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- svnt 1y ago
  Timing is a difficult variable.
- KerrAvon 1y ago
  It wasn't possible for them to be well managed at the time it mattered. Sears was loaded with debt by private equity ghouls; same story for almost all defunct brick and mortar businesses; Amazon was a factor, but private equity is what actually destroyed them.
  - frmersdog 1y ago
    And, knowing Jeff Bezos' private equity origins, one could be forgiven for entertaining the thought that none of this was an accident. Just don't be an idiot and, you know, give voice to that thought or anything.
    - ProjectArcturis 1y ago
      Are you suggesting that Jeff Bezos somehow convinced all his PE buddies to tank Sears (and their own loans to it) in order for him to build Amazon with less competition? Because, well, no offense, but that seems like a remarkably naive understanding of capital markets and individual motivations. Especially when it's well documented how Eddie Lampert's libertarian beliefs caused him to run it into the ground.
    - chollida1 1y ago
      > And, knowing Jeff Bezos' private equity origins He doesn't have private equity origins as far as I know. He came from DE Shaw, a very well respected and long running hedge fund.
  - andrew_lettuce 1y ago
    Thank you for bringing this up. Sears really didn't have a choice, they were a victim of the most pernicious LBO, Gordon Gecko-style strip mining nonsense on the PE spectrum. All private equity is not the same but after seeing two PE deals from the inside (one a leveraged buy out) and another VC one with the "grow at insane place" playbook I think I prefer the naked and aligned greed of the VC model; PE destroyed both of the other companies while the VC one was already doomed.
- mikestew 1y ago
  They weren't wrong. Evidence suggests that maybe they were. "Focusing" obviously didn't work. But at the end of the day, it was private equity and the hubris of a CEO who wasn't nearly as clever as he'd like to have thought he was.
- lotsoweiners 1y ago
  I worked at Sears at the time when Amazon first started becoming a household name. I for the life of me couldn’t understand why they didn’t make a copycat site called the Sears Catalog Online. But then I think about it and management wanted salesmanship because selling maintenance agreements was their cash cow. Low margin sales won in the long term hence we have Walmart and Amazon as the biggest retailers.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Likely standard management failure. Sears got burned badly when it put its catalog online on Prodigy in the 80's, so obviously online sales were doomed to failure.

dh2022 1y ago

My favorite anecdote about Sears is from Starbucks current HQs - the HQs used to be a warehouse for Sears. Before renovation the first floor walls next to the elevators used to have Sears' "commitment to customers" (or something like that). To me it read like it was written by Amazon decades earlier. Something about how Sears promises that customers will be 100% satisfied with the purchase, and if for whatever reason that is not the case customers can return the purchase back to Sears and Sears will pay for the return transportation charges.

tombert 1y ago
Craftsman tools have almost felt like a life-hack sometimes; their no-questions-asked warranties were just incredible. My dad broke a Craftsman shovel once that he had owned for four years, took it to Sears, and it was replaced immediately, no questions asked. I broke a socket wrench that I had owned for a year and had the same story. I haven't tested these warranties since Craftsman was sold to Black and Decker, but when it was still owned by Sears I almost exclusively bought Craftsman tools as a result of their wonderful warranties.
- mindcrime 1y ago
  FWIW, I bought a Craftsman 1/4" drive ratchet/socket set at a Lowes Home Improvement store last year, and when I got it home and started messing with it, the ratchet jammed up immediately (before even being used on any actual fastener). I drove back over there the next day and the lady at the service desk took a quick look, said "go get another one off the shelf and come back here." I did, and by the time I got back she'd finished whatever paperwork needed to be done, handed me some $whatever and said "have a nice day." Maybe not quite as hassle free as in years past, but I found the experience acceptable enough.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    I think that's as much about Lowes as it is Craftsman... I don't think Craftsman tools have been particularly well build, just that they had and are able to have enough margins to have a no questions asked policy... it probably helps that a lot of the materials are completely and easily recyclable.

esaym 1y ago

There were quite a few small ISP's in the 1990's. Even Bill Gothard[0] had one. [0]https://web.archive.org/web/19990208003742/http://characterlink.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990208003742/http://characterl...

hollerith 1y ago
Prodigy predates ISPs (internet service providers). Before the web had matured a little in 1993 the internet was too technically challenging to interest most consumers except maybe for email, and Prodigy was formed in 1984 -- and although it offered email, it was walled-garden email: a Prodigy user could not exchange email with the internet till the mid-1990s at which time Prodigy might have become an ISP for a few years before going out of business.
tombert 1y ago
At a previous job I worked under a guy who started his own ISP in the early 90’s. I would have loved to have been part of that scene but I was only like four when that happened.
jstgunderscore 1y ago
[dead]

kens 1y ago

On the topic of how Sears used to be high-tech: back in 1981, when IBM introduced the IBM PC, it was the first time that they needed to sell computers through retail. So they partnered with Sears, along with the Computerland chain of computer stores, since Sears was considered a reasonable place for a businessperson to buy a computer. To plan this, meetings were held at the Sears Tower, which was the world's tallest building at the time.

NordSteve 1y ago
Bought my IBM PC from Sears back in the day. Still have the receipt.
- zenonu 1y ago
  Worthy if its own hacker news post. Would love to see it.
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    Yup I agree GP. today is the first time I heard of sears and the comment about the sears towers and ibm literally gave me goosebumps.
duderific 1y ago
Wow, I hadn't thought about Computerland for quite a while. That was my go-to to kill some time at the mall when I was a teen.

gcanyon 1y ago

:-) Then it's going to blow your mind that CompuServe (while not founded by them) was a product of H&R Block.

matthewn 1y ago

For more on this -- and how Sears had everything it needed (and more) to be what Amazon became -- see this comment from a 2007 MetaFilter thread: https://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Decline#1742245 https://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Declin...

fragmede 1y ago
The untold story, is the names of individuals fighting office politics that lead to that (not) happening.