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Comment by OscarTheGrinch

4 days ago

I think you're right about stickyness up to a point.

Cultural defaults seem unchangeable but then suddenly everyone knows, that's everyone knows, that OpenAI is passé.

OpenAI has a real chance to blow their lead, ending up in a hellish no-man's land by trying to please everyone: Not cool enough for normies, not safe enough for business, not radical enough for techies. Pick a lane or perish.

Not owning their own infrastructure, and being propped up by financial / valuation tricks are more red flags.

Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace.

28 comments

OscarTheGrinch

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oblio  4 days ago

> Being a first mover doesn't guarantee getting to the golden goose, remember MySpace.

MySpace, ICQ, Altavista, Dropbox, Yahoo, BlackBerry, Xerox Alto, Altair 8800, CP/M, WordStar, VisiCalc, the list is very long.

  • mercer  3 days ago

    Hotmail is a good example too. I remember it being pretty ubiquitous, at least for the 'personal email' crowd, and it seemed implausible that people would give up on what was often their main email 'location' for another offering without being able to transfer their often important and personal stuff. then gmail came along.

    • hackinthebochs  3 days ago

      The internet and the surrounding context changed so fast that it made little sense to cling to old email addresses made in the old context. Gmail represented the 'new internet' and old patterns became obsolete (less subversive, more mainstream/corporate). When there's a seismic shift in usage patterns that's when all bets are off regarding where everyone lands. Being the first mover means little here. If the way people interacted with AI underwent a massive shift, OpenAI would likely get left behind. The only safe bet is to invent your own killer.

    • overgard  3 days ago

      Younger people might not realize or remember this, but when GMail came out it was HUGE. Like, I remember it was invite-only for a while and getting an invite was a really big deal. In retrospect that was some genius marketing by them (also just a way better product, at the time)

      Also switching email was a lot easier back then. Nowadays if you're using gmail as an auth provider it's very hard to completely abandon an inbox without a lot of friction. Back then all your logins were separate anyway.

    • FartyMcFarter  3 days ago

      Interesting point. I guess people liked the convenience of unlimited storage even more than they liked the convenience of keeping the same email address. In a way they traded one convenience for another.

    • prawn  3 days ago

      Beyond that too, I would think that many people view a Hotmail account as an indicator that you're backwards or not serious in business.

      I distinctly remember the shift to and then away from Altavista as well.

  • shakow  4 days ago

    VisiCalc, CP/M, BlackBerry and Yahoo definitely got a golden goose; it's long after establishing their dominance that they failed at maintaining it.

    • stingraycharles  3 days ago

      Isn’t that exactly what’s being discussed re: OpenAI? They seemed unstoppable a few years ago, but have lost quite a bit of reputation and their position of technical lead.

      7 replies →

  • Lorkki  3 days ago

    IBM owned literally the whole market on computers at a time when computing equipment was prohibitively expensive and centralised.

    • oblio  3 days ago

      IBM was a special case, I'm not sure there were many markets so thoroughly cornered like IT was for about 3 decades. I guess telephone (AT&T) was similar.

      1 reply →

chasd00  3 days ago

I guess it depends on what you mean by golden goose. MySpace sold for an insane amount of money at the time and it was basically one guy, “Tom”.

onion2k  4 days ago

Pick a lane or perish.

Literally every industry has examples of businesses that don't excel at anything and still do well enough to carry on. In fact, in most industries, it's actually hard to see any business that's clearly leading on any specific front because as soon as it becomes an obvious factor in gaining market share the competing businesses focus on that area as well.

  • gmac  3 days ago

    Yeah. Vauxhall/Opel has always been my go-to example here. Their cars excel at nothing. They’re not especially stylish. Not the fastest or nicest to drive. Not unusually efficient. Not particularly reliable or guaranteed for a long period. By no means the cheapest. They don’t even achieve a sweet spot of averageness across all these things. Yet people have somehow carried on buying them over decades.

    • nDRDY  3 days ago

      Jeremey Clarkson called the Astra "the most boring car ever made". I loved both of mine - they always got me and my stuff where I needed to be, and were easy to fix.

      The last one, a 2007 model that has now moved on to my younger sibling, might be the last "simple" car.