Comment by saosebastiao
8 years ago
This is just tech rebranding of a really old concept. There are mountains of evidence of this strategy being employed back as far as the industrial revolution. I don't know why, but this sort of crap really brings out the eye-rolls. Maybe it's the fact that this information is widely and freely available, but NIH syndrome makes people feel like they've discovered some new and novel concept about the world. And then you get big-ego personalities who spend massive amounts of time congratulating each other about it.
Like when Peter Thiel starting talking about his novel strategy of explicitly trying to not compete with others and aiming for a monopoly. You can find that explicitly described in complete detail in any ordinary marketing textbook in the chapter titled Market Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning. But for months people couldn't stop talking about how Thiel was a genius for this new idea.
I get the whole concept of XKCD's lucky 10,000. This is different. This would be like taking credit for inventing mentos and coke bombs just because someone hasn't heard of it before.
Gwern explicitly says they got it from Spolsky, and Spolky explicitly says he got it from a intro course on microeconomics. I have no idea who you are accusing of taking credit.
Okay, what's the name of the old concept that's the same as "Commoditize Your Complement"? The textbook chapter title, if you will?
It's common and mundane enough to not even have a name (at least up until the point where it was "branded"). In a strategy textbook, you would find the ideas discussed as a bulletpoint tactic to use for two sided markets or format wars. It is often mentioned as a strategy for aftermarket parts and services in a growth market. In pricing, it's a minor variation of the razor-and-blades model where you outsource or standardize the "razor".
That's not the same thing. The razor and blades model is where you are both selling the razor at below market prices and the blades at a markup.
"Commoditing your complements" is about you making the razor blades interchangeable where multiple manufacturers are competing to sell razor blades at low margins while you make all of the money selling razors.
Apple commoditized apps and the operating system by giving them away for free, as did Google. Microsoft commoditized PC manufacturers, etc.
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