No, this is not a paranoid conspiracy theory. This is just a thought experiment at taking current trends to their logical extremes. I quite like the results, however.
One thing I quite enjoy about watching large tech companies is their rather straightforward approach to problem solving. Having trouble breaking into a certain industry? Just reinvent the industry. Is one company causing you problems with their chokehold on the market? Invent their competition and push them out of the way. Consider how many industries Apple has essentially invented in the last decade. This is a very different approach from large corporations in other industries. GM, Ford, Honda, Chrysler, all the automakers, all expanded until they could expand no more, and then settled down to compete for incrementally larger slices of the existing market share. (Unless you're talking about Tesla, which is as much a tech company as a car company, and acts like it.)
Recently, I was discussing this with my brother in relation to the video game company Valve. Over the last decade, through the incremental growth and development of their Steam platform, Valve has managed to snap up something like 75% of the total PC video game distribution market. As a consumer, I will admit that I think the last time I bought a hard copy of a PC game was Halo 2; everything else I could desire is either on Steam or can be downloaded directly from the developer. And given the choice, I'll go with Steam. They have an extremely well-integrated social and stat-tracking front-end, and more to the point, they have a ridiculous economic engine in the form of TF2 Hats, Dota 2 cosmetic items, trading cards, and all the other games that provide market items to feed the growing Steam economy.
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.” - Oscar Wilde.
I use this blog to put my thoughts in writing, to refine and clarify my opinions and arguments, and to hopefully catch any major errors or blind spots before I attempt to act on them. Topics can range from politics to film criticism to things happening in my daily life.
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Monday, November 18, 2013
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Blogger being a pain
As much as I like my tasteful black background with white text, it makes things a pain when Blogger decides to make the background for half of my text white and doesn't give me an option to set the background to transparent. This has happened on the last two posts I have worked on. C'mon, Google. Stop wallowing in freakishly large piles of money and make the UI make sense.
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