7 ms·

I wonder what differentiates a disruptive product from a better product? It seems like the qualities you listed are hallmarks of all good products, right?

r00fus 13y ago
Example: Series2 TiVo - couldn't do HD like some of the cable set-top boxes, but was the first mainstream DVR and I much preferred watching a 30m show in 20m over "HD".
josh2600 13y ago
A better product is one the public can imagine. A disruptive product is one that the public cannot conceive of, such that its introduction alters the standards in an industry. A better product is the HTC8525[0] over the HTC8500. A disruptive product is the HTC8525 versus the iPhone. [0]http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32133413.html http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32... - The leading WinMo smartphone in Q4 2006, pre-iPhone.
- invalidOrTaken 13y ago
  This does not seem in line with the understanding of the word used in The Innovator's Dilemma, the book that popularized the word in a business sense. Guyzero's response above matches much more closely to it.
  - josh2600 13y ago
    Normally, I'd agree, but in the case of the iPhone, the disruption was more profound than simple off-the-shelf components. I can go into detail, but the standard ideas for Disruption tend to be technical in nature whereas the iPhone was a profound multi-faceted assault on the world. There are so many elements of this attack, it's hard to know where to begin, but it was certainly more than just a newfound set of components (a lot of the iPhones physical technology was not new). But, I hear and agree with your point. Guyzero makes a great post above and it's certainly worth reading :).
    - invalidOrTaken 13y ago
      I had to laugh when I read this. How can I not upvote something so good-natured, especially when it's a response to blunt HN criticism like I delivered?
  - eulerphi 13y ago
    Re-defining what is a well-defined english word using hipster-startup-hack-bias is contrived and self-fulfilling. The phone caused disruption in the world, done, done, and done. Now quit trying to fit the word disrupt into every conversation. Products create a rift, or they don't. Products are worth their value, or they're not. There's no magical "disrupt" criteria to satisfy the startup hivemind rubric.
    - guyzero 13y ago
      Personally I'd consider a fairly major book written by a harvard professor to be a bit more than a "hipster-startup-hack-bias re-definition." In the study of technology management, the term "disruptive innovation" has become a term of art that encapsulates a complex set of concepts into a single term. It's no more a "re-definition" that using the term "material impact" in regards to corporate finance.
      - eulerphi 13y ago
        Harvard professor or not, he simply coined a term to refer to a new technology deprecating an old one, so much that it becomes the new market that companies compete in. Yes, the iPhone did that. Where's the debate -- it's a fact that everything became 'touch' since then. The term 'disruptive' just cheapens the discussion and brings it to a baseline level of 'startup culture' drudgery. The term is used so often around here that it's become something of a pseudo-intellectual discussion starter.
        invalidOrTaken 13y ago
        While I agree that the term is overused, in its genesis of popularity, it referred to a real (and previously unnamed) phenomenon: wben an un-(or less-)profitable market eats a more-profitable one, such that players in the grown-up market are misled by listening to their customers. If you built a hovercraft, it would destroy the car market, and everyone would expect that. But Blackberry did not expect the iPhone to kill them---there were all sorts of business-y feautures it lacked. "Blackberries are fine!" said RIM's customers. And that is worth naming, I think. We have a whole jargon around the startup ideal of constant, low-level iteration, when that is precisely what screwed Blackberry.
- guyzero 13y ago
  So while I will be the first to admit that I certainly didn't predict the iPhone, some of the iPhone's success was based on Apple leveraging their success with the iPod. The existence of iTunes and an ecosystem of third-party accessories based on the Apple 30-pin connector certainly helped the iPhone, not to mention Apple's brand cachet which was on an upswing at the time. it's an interesting thought experiment to consider if the iPhone would have succeeded if instead of Apple it had been put out by, say, Danger.
  - josh2600 13y ago
    Some thoughts. 1) The ecosystem did not spring into life with the iPhone; a lot of vendors were unsure initially but there was obviously tremendous benefit to Apple due to the iPod industry. 2) Danger would not have been able to launch the iPhone for a multitude of reasons. Even as a part of Microsoft, they couldn't have done it. I could go really in-depth here, but Microsoft is really bad at Art and Politics, which I would argue were the keys to the iPhones success. 3) The iPhone is a triumph for a number of reasons, but I tend to think the social conventions the iPhone destroyed were the most interesting part. I mean, I was working at AT&T when the iPhone dropped. Before the iPhone: * Everything was free phone at the low end and $199 at the top end * Apps were pre-loaded onto phones * Carriers drove handset manufacturers choice of OS * No one ever waited for a phone * Manufacturers did not care about UI/UX * Phones sold on spec sheets After the iPhone: * Most people forget that the iPhone launched at a price point of $499 with no subsidy. They failed but this was Apple's attempt to kill free phones, and they (sort of) did. * App store (year 2) * Manufacturers drove handset sales to Operators (and outside of operators) * People line up for phones all the time * Everyone cares about UI/UX * Phones sell by Operating System (And UI/UX) I could go on and on. There are so many things that changed because of design decisions by Cupertino. No, Danger could not have done the iPhone. Not because of technical limitations, but because of politics. Wresting that much power out of such a reinforced fiefdom was a herculean effort with commensurate results. Appreciate the insight though friend :).
    - reiichiroh 13y ago
      Well, they tried with the Kin, right?
guyzero 13y ago
It's really a pretty specific idea initially coined in Clayton Christensen's book "The Innovator's Dilemma." From the book, via Wikipedia: "Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream." So the canonical example would be PCs disrupting the market for mainframes or minicomputers. Or as described in the book, less powerful hydraulic excavators disrupting steam-powered excavators. It's a good book, anyone who is interested in the business of technology should read it. The contradiction is that disruptive products are usually much worse products than the ones they eventually replace. No one who owned a VAX or a mainframe looked at the first IBM PCs and thought that the PC was a "better" product. But the PC started cheaper, stayed cheaper and got better fast enough to displace minicomputers while at the same time opening up an entirely new market for computers that didn't exist before. So much of this hinges on how you define what "disruptive" means. There's an argument to be made that the iPhone started the trend of phones & tablets disrupting the entire desktop PC industry, starting as "worse" products that eventually replaced the "better" product. I personally don't think you could really say the iPhone "disrupted" Blackberry per se - their relationship is more like early Compaq to IBM where Compaq/Apple put out a much better product that broke down barriers holding the original product back (e.g. Compaq decoupling bus speed from processor speed allowing them to ship a faster computer with an ISA-compatible bus for expansion cards).
pekk 13y ago
I suspect that it often boils down to marketing. A company selling you something somewhat better wants you to be thrilled and think it is revolutionizing everything, not "hmm this is somewhat better, I might prefer this if it doesn't cost too much more." Which may be the reality of many things which get called "disruptive".
j-g-faustus 13y ago
Here's a blog post arguing that the iPhone wasn't disruptive, like PC vs mainframe - the PC was worse in every respect, but it was also dramatically cheaper. Instead, it was obsoletive, like PC vs typewriters - the PC was way more expensive, but could do so much more, and once you had a PC it didn't make much sense to have a typewriter too. http://stratechery.com/2013/obsoletive/ http://stratechery.com/2013/obsoletive/

r00fus 13y ago

Example: Series2 TiVo - couldn't do HD like some of the cable set-top boxes, but was the first mainstream DVR and I much preferred watching a 30m show in 20m over "HD".

josh2600 13y ago

A better product is one the public can imagine. A disruptive product is one that the public cannot conceive of, such that its introduction alters the standards in an industry. A better product is the HTC8525[0] over the HTC8500. A disruptive product is the HTC8525 versus the iPhone. [0]http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32133413.html http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/at-t-8525/4505-6452_7-32... - The leading WinMo smartphone in Q4 2006, pre-iPhone.

invalidOrTaken 13y ago
This does not seem in line with the understanding of the word used in The Innovator's Dilemma, the book that popularized the word in a business sense. Guyzero's response above matches much more closely to it.
- josh2600 13y ago
  Normally, I'd agree, but in the case of the iPhone, the disruption was more profound than simple off-the-shelf components. I can go into detail, but the standard ideas for Disruption tend to be technical in nature whereas the iPhone was a profound multi-faceted assault on the world. There are so many elements of this attack, it's hard to know where to begin, but it was certainly more than just a newfound set of components (a lot of the iPhones physical technology was not new). But, I hear and agree with your point. Guyzero makes a great post above and it's certainly worth reading :).
  - invalidOrTaken 13y ago
    I had to laugh when I read this. How can I not upvote something so good-natured, especially when it's a response to blunt HN criticism like I delivered?
- eulerphi 13y ago
  Re-defining what is a well-defined english word using hipster-startup-hack-bias is contrived and self-fulfilling. The phone caused disruption in the world, done, done, and done. Now quit trying to fit the word disrupt into every conversation. Products create a rift, or they don't. Products are worth their value, or they're not. There's no magical "disrupt" criteria to satisfy the startup hivemind rubric.
  - guyzero 13y ago
    Personally I'd consider a fairly major book written by a harvard professor to be a bit more than a "hipster-startup-hack-bias re-definition." In the study of technology management, the term "disruptive innovation" has become a term of art that encapsulates a complex set of concepts into a single term. It's no more a "re-definition" that using the term "material impact" in regards to corporate finance.
    - eulerphi 13y ago
      Harvard professor or not, he simply coined a term to refer to a new technology deprecating an old one, so much that it becomes the new market that companies compete in. Yes, the iPhone did that. Where's the debate -- it's a fact that everything became 'touch' since then. The term 'disruptive' just cheapens the discussion and brings it to a baseline level of 'startup culture' drudgery. The term is used so often around here that it's become something of a pseudo-intellectual discussion starter.
      - invalidOrTaken 13y ago
        While I agree that the term is overused, in its genesis of popularity, it referred to a real (and previously unnamed) phenomenon: wben an un-(or less-)profitable market eats a more-profitable one, such that players in the grown-up market are misled by listening to their customers. If you built a hovercraft, it would destroy the car market, and everyone would expect that. But Blackberry did not expect the iPhone to kill them---there were all sorts of business-y feautures it lacked. "Blackberries are fine!" said RIM's customers. And that is worth naming, I think. We have a whole jargon around the startup ideal of constant, low-level iteration, when that is precisely what screwed Blackberry.
guyzero 13y ago
So while I will be the first to admit that I certainly didn't predict the iPhone, some of the iPhone's success was based on Apple leveraging their success with the iPod. The existence of iTunes and an ecosystem of third-party accessories based on the Apple 30-pin connector certainly helped the iPhone, not to mention Apple's brand cachet which was on an upswing at the time. it's an interesting thought experiment to consider if the iPhone would have succeeded if instead of Apple it had been put out by, say, Danger.
- josh2600 13y ago
  Some thoughts. 1) The ecosystem did not spring into life with the iPhone; a lot of vendors were unsure initially but there was obviously tremendous benefit to Apple due to the iPod industry. 2) Danger would not have been able to launch the iPhone for a multitude of reasons. Even as a part of Microsoft, they couldn't have done it. I could go really in-depth here, but Microsoft is really bad at Art and Politics, which I would argue were the keys to the iPhones success. 3) The iPhone is a triumph for a number of reasons, but I tend to think the social conventions the iPhone destroyed were the most interesting part. I mean, I was working at AT&T when the iPhone dropped. Before the iPhone: * Everything was free phone at the low end and $199 at the top end * Apps were pre-loaded onto phones * Carriers drove handset manufacturers choice of OS * No one ever waited for a phone * Manufacturers did not care about UI/UX * Phones sold on spec sheets After the iPhone: * Most people forget that the iPhone launched at a price point of $499 with no subsidy. They failed but this was Apple's attempt to kill free phones, and they (sort of) did. * App store (year 2) * Manufacturers drove handset sales to Operators (and outside of operators) * People line up for phones all the time * Everyone cares about UI/UX * Phones sell by Operating System (And UI/UX) I could go on and on. There are so many things that changed because of design decisions by Cupertino. No, Danger could not have done the iPhone. Not because of technical limitations, but because of politics. Wresting that much power out of such a reinforced fiefdom was a herculean effort with commensurate results. Appreciate the insight though friend :).
  - reiichiroh 13y ago
    Well, they tried with the Kin, right?

guyzero 13y ago

It's really a pretty specific idea initially coined in Clayton Christensen's book "The Innovator's Dilemma." From the book, via Wikipedia: "Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream." So the canonical example would be PCs disrupting the market for mainframes or minicomputers. Or as described in the book, less powerful hydraulic excavators disrupting steam-powered excavators. It's a good book, anyone who is interested in the business of technology should read it. The contradiction is that disruptive products are usually much worse products than the ones they eventually replace. No one who owned a VAX or a mainframe looked at the first IBM PCs and thought that the PC was a "better" product. But the PC started cheaper, stayed cheaper and got better fast enough to displace minicomputers while at the same time opening up an entirely new market for computers that didn't exist before. So much of this hinges on how you define what "disruptive" means. There's an argument to be made that the iPhone started the trend of phones & tablets disrupting the entire desktop PC industry, starting as "worse" products that eventually replaced the "better" product. I personally don't think you could really say the iPhone "disrupted" Blackberry per se - their relationship is more like early Compaq to IBM where Compaq/Apple put out a much better product that broke down barriers holding the original product back (e.g. Compaq decoupling bus speed from processor speed allowing them to ship a faster computer with an ISA-compatible bus for expansion cards).

pekk 13y ago

I suspect that it often boils down to marketing. A company selling you something somewhat better wants you to be thrilled and think it is revolutionizing everything, not "hmm this is somewhat better, I might prefer this if it doesn't cost too much more." Which may be the reality of many things which get called "disruptive".

j-g-faustus 13y ago

Here's a blog post arguing that the iPhone wasn't disruptive, like PC vs mainframe - the PC was worse in every respect, but it was also dramatically cheaper. Instead, it was obsoletive, like PC vs typewriters - the PC was way more expensive, but could do so much more, and once you had a PC it didn't make much sense to have a typewriter too. http://stratechery.com/2013/obsoletive/ http://stratechery.com/2013/obsoletive/