Early reviews of today's tech giants: Part 1
Rewinding can give us a lot of perspective about tech discussions today
The thing trying to have a hot take with respect to tech or novel business models is nobody will know how things play out in the long run. Something that looks like a terrible idea by the standards and context of today might seem obvious many, many years later. Society changes, human behaviour changes, technology changes. And importantly, the three are interconnected - the smartphone wasn’t just an evolution over landlines, it changed our behaviour, brains, necks, business, society, culture… Often all at the same time incrementally without us realising it. Sometimes it’ll take entire decades for an idea to realise itself - the internet itself took three decades to go from a military research lab project to a mass utility.
Which is why I’m loathe to dismiss any new tech or innovation right off the bat. I think new ideas shift the tech overton window just a little bit and eventually it would become mainstream, especially if Apple leverages on it. A good example might be earphones. When I was in college back in 2005, you’d find very few people wearing them in public (what would they be attached to, after all)? Fast forward to as late as 2016 and the idea of a person ostensibly talking to themselves (but being on Airpods) seemed ridiculous. Today, that is not just acceptable but expected. Society and behaviour catches up remarkably to utility.
So for a couple of weeks, I am going to compile something I’ve wanted to do for a while: Some critical, maybe even quaint, reviews of tech products and companies that are undisputed giants today. Let’s start with one of the best-known examples of this flip.
Amazon
Today, the idea of ecommerce seems obvious, even natural. That was distinctly not the case back in the mid 90s when Jeff Bezos started his online bookstore. And the criticism didn’t come from the average person on the street, but business reporters.