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The Model T was hardly the first car either. Sometimes getting the details right -- turning a curiosity for the rich into a tool for the masses -- really is a

• rayiner 13y ago
  Altavista was hardly a curiosity--it had 13 million queries a day at its peak. In any case, nobody is denying Google recognition for building a damn good search engine/advertising platform.
  • roc 13y ago
    And there was something like a half million automobiles sold before the model T. In any case, my point wasn't that the analogy is particularly apt in this specific case. It was that extending "what has been done" to "what works for people", in general, is a noteworthy accomplishment in and of itself. So while one can certainly still argue that Google hadn't 'changed the world', they ought not simply point to the prior existence of alternatives. They would also need to show that it didn't unleash untapped demand/usage. And the snarky, though not entirely-irrelevant, reply to altavista's peak usage is: 13 million queries? Sounds a million people had to search about a dozen times each to get a decent hit.