4 ms·

> Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace. MySpace, ICQ, Altavista, Dropbox, Yahoo, BlackBerry, Xerox Alto, Altair

by oblio 8mo ago

> Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace. MySpace, ICQ, Altavista, Dropbox, Yahoo, BlackBerry, Xerox Alto, Altair 8800, CP/M, WordStar, VisiCalc, the list is very long.

shakow 8mo ago
VisiCalc, CP/M, BlackBerry and Yahoo definitely got a golden goose; it's long after establishing their dominance that they failed at maintaining it.
- stingraycharles 8mo ago
  Isn’t that exactly what’s being discussed re: OpenAI? They seemed unstoppable a few years ago, but have lost quite a bit of reputation and their position of technical lead.
  - shakow 8mo ago
    What I mean is that the one I cited were first movers that actually found a golden goose, then got ousted years/decades later for various reasons. For now at least, OpenAI has not found a golden goose (i.e. made a lot of money) yet.
  - wickedsight 8mo ago
    > have lost quite a bit of reputation in the tech world, maybe. All my 'normie' friends are using ChatGPT though and have no concept of their reputation, nor intention of switching. Most people I know are hardly even aware of alternatives, even of Gemini, though everyone has a Google account. I personally also use ChatGPT and have zero reason not to, currently. I might switch if they royally mess up, but everything they've messed up has been fixed within a day.
    - XorNot 8mo ago
      But would they pay for it? That's the difference.
      - famouswaffles 8mo ago
        More people pay for ChatGPT than any other Consumer AI service by far, and when ads rollout, it won't matter that much.
        stingraycharles 8mo ago
        “consumer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, I’d be curious to know how it compares to overall AI usage (ie including professionals using it).
        famouswaffles 8mo ago
        It's not. By consumer, I simply mean the respective apps, not API Usage. I'm not excluding "professionals" lol.
    - stingraycharles 8mo ago
      My normie friends aren’t paying several hundred of $ a month on their services, though.
mercer 8mo ago
Hotmail is a good example too. I remember it being pretty ubiquitous, at least for the 'personal email' crowd, and it seemed implausible that people would give up on what was often their main email 'location' for another offering without being able to transfer their often important and personal stuff. then gmail came along.
- FartyMcFarter 8mo ago
  Interesting point. I guess people liked the convenience of unlimited storage even more than they liked the convenience of keeping the same email address. In a way they traded one convenience for another.
- mister_mort 8mo ago
  Did Hotmail offer email redirection at that time? I can't remember whether that sort of thing that would make it easy to switch away was offered.
  - croon 8mo ago
    I don't remember that detail, but I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. So there was less friction to switch to gmail, and more reason to do so due to the "real time" ticking storage amount of gmail, which then became an archive (again for most people).
    - kergonath 8mo ago
      > I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. Indeed. For me, the step was gmail. With its humongous 1GB of storage, that was the moment when I stopped having to delete stuff to save space. It’s funny because a lot of people I know who were already older at that point kept the habit of deleting emails, even today.
- prawn 8mo ago
  Beyond that too, I would think that many people view a Hotmail account as an indicator that you're backwards or not serious in business. I distinctly remember the shift to and then away from Altavista as well.
Lorkki 8mo ago
IBM owned literally the whole market on computers at a time when computing equipment was prohibitively expensive and centralised.
- oblio 8mo ago
  IBM was a special case, I'm not sure there were many markets so thoroughly cornered like IT was for about 3 decades. I guess telephone (AT&T) was similar.
  - Lorkki 8mo ago
    I think there's similarity to the dynamic too. Not many instances have the means at this time to produce LLMs from scratch and operate them at scale.
nixass 8mo ago
> the list is very long Tesla is lurking as well

by oblio 8mo ago

shakow 8mo ago

VisiCalc, CP/M, BlackBerry and Yahoo definitely got a golden goose; it's long after establishing their dominance that they failed at maintaining it.

stingraycharles 8mo ago
Isn’t that exactly what’s being discussed re: OpenAI? They seemed unstoppable a few years ago, but have lost quite a bit of reputation and their position of technical lead.
- shakow 8mo ago
  What I mean is that the one I cited were first movers that actually found a golden goose, then got ousted years/decades later for various reasons. For now at least, OpenAI has not found a golden goose (i.e. made a lot of money) yet.
- wickedsight 8mo ago
  > have lost quite a bit of reputation in the tech world, maybe. All my 'normie' friends are using ChatGPT though and have no concept of their reputation, nor intention of switching. Most people I know are hardly even aware of alternatives, even of Gemini, though everyone has a Google account. I personally also use ChatGPT and have zero reason not to, currently. I might switch if they royally mess up, but everything they've messed up has been fixed within a day.
  - XorNot 8mo ago
    But would they pay for it? That's the difference.
    - famouswaffles 8mo ago
      More people pay for ChatGPT than any other Consumer AI service by far, and when ads rollout, it won't matter that much.
      - stingraycharles 8mo ago
        “consumer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, I’d be curious to know how it compares to overall AI usage (ie including professionals using it).
        famouswaffles 8mo ago
        It's not. By consumer, I simply mean the respective apps, not API Usage. I'm not excluding "professionals" lol.
  - stingraycharles 8mo ago
    My normie friends aren’t paying several hundred of $ a month on their services, though.

mercer 8mo ago

Hotmail is a good example too. I remember it being pretty ubiquitous, at least for the 'personal email' crowd, and it seemed implausible that people would give up on what was often their main email 'location' for another offering without being able to transfer their often important and personal stuff. then gmail came along.

FartyMcFarter 8mo ago
Interesting point. I guess people liked the convenience of unlimited storage even more than they liked the convenience of keeping the same email address. In a way they traded one convenience for another.
mister_mort 8mo ago
Did Hotmail offer email redirection at that time? I can't remember whether that sort of thing that would make it easy to switch away was offered.
- croon 8mo ago
  I don't remember that detail, but I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. So there was less friction to switch to gmail, and more reason to do so due to the "real time" ticking storage amount of gmail, which then became an archive (again for most people).
  - kergonath 8mo ago
    > I do remember most people not treating their inbox as an archive at the time. Indeed. For me, the step was gmail. With its humongous 1GB of storage, that was the moment when I stopped having to delete stuff to save space. It’s funny because a lot of people I know who were already older at that point kept the habit of deleting emails, even today.
prawn 8mo ago
Beyond that too, I would think that many people view a Hotmail account as an indicator that you're backwards or not serious in business. I distinctly remember the shift to and then away from Altavista as well.

Lorkki 8mo ago

IBM owned literally the whole market on computers at a time when computing equipment was prohibitively expensive and centralised.

oblio 8mo ago
IBM was a special case, I'm not sure there were many markets so thoroughly cornered like IT was for about 3 decades. I guess telephone (AT&T) was similar.
- Lorkki 8mo ago
  I think there's similarity to the dynamic too. Not many instances have the means at this time to produce LLMs from scratch and operate them at scale.

nixass 8mo ago

> the list is very long Tesla is lurking as well