3 ms·

"Just general commentary. If something really, truly works and you can prove it, then everyone will adopt it." This is charmingly naive.

• haberman 12y ago
  Maybe so, but you would have a more convincing (counter-)argument if you offered some counterexamples.
  • tbrownaw 12y ago
    To start with, anything covered by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble... .
    • mtdewcmu 12y ago
      Technophiles have a tendency to fall in love with ideas that no one else cares about and assert that people that dont see what they see are fools. But capitalism enforces a degree of honesty. If you can put a cash value on the productivity gain some idea will provide, and it's a significant sum, then it's not much of a stretch to predict that it will prevail eventually. If the idea has no significant cash value, then it's only a mediocre idea. Sometimes we tech people have to be humble and accept that something we love is mediocre (especially when we try to start a company based on the idea and no one buys it).
• mtdewcmu 12y ago
  Here's an example of something that truly works: git. I don't think git was adopted because Linus is a silver-tongued salesman. I think the cost-benefit analysis was just lopsided in git's favor, and everyone adopted it. The reason it doesn't happen more often is that there aren't that many truly good, production-ready ideas out there that haven't already been done.