Comment by djtango
2 days ago
This is a great example that I hadn't heard of and reminds me of when Nintendo tried to become an ISP when they built the Family Computer Network System in 1988
A16Z once talked about the scars of being too early causes investors/companies to get fixed that an idea will never work. Then some new younger people who never got burned will try the same idea and things will work.
Prodigy and the Faminet probably fall into that bucket along with a lot of early internet companies where they tried things early, got burned and then possibly were too late to capitalise when it was finally the right time for the idea to flourish
Reminds me of Elon not taking a no for an answer. He did it twice, with a massive success.
A true shame to see how he's completely lost track with Tesla, the competition particularly from China is eating them alive. And in space, it's a matter of years until the rest of the world catches up.
And now, he's ran out of tricks - and more importantly, on public support. He can't pivot any more, his entire brand is too toxic to touch.
Lucky for him, the US government is keeping him from being eaten alive in the USA at least.
I remember that one time we tried to drastically limit Japanese imports to protect the American car industry, which basically created the Lexus LS400, one of the best cars ever made.
I dont know, you could argue that maybe GM with the EV1 was the 'too early' EV and Tesla was just at the right moment. Same goes for SpaceX, The idea of a reusable launcher was not a new idea and studied by NASA. I think they did some test vehicles.
SpaceX is an excellent example of this phenomenon. Reusable rockets were "known" to be financially infeasible because the Space Shuttle was so expensive. NASA & oldspace didn't seriously pursue reusable vehicles because the mostly reusable Space Shuttle cost so much more than conventional disposable vehicles.
Similar to how Sears didn't put their catalog online in the 90's because putting it online on Prodigy failed so badly in the 80's.