"Kozmo.com wasn't a bad idea so much as a badly timed one. The marketplace wasn't mature, and the business model for delivery hadn't been established. Today, of course, the Kozmo.com model is everywhere-DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and other services allow you to order almost any foodstuff to your door."
"Friendster and Myspace were first in social networking, but Facebook eradicated them. Treo and BlackBerry owned the smartphone market until the iPhone stamped them out. Early winners seem obvious and enduring, until they do not."
"If ChatGPT becomes outmoded, it won't be the result of OpenAI losing ground or failing to innovate. Instead, the entire generative-AI sector will have become a commodity, like soft drinks or facial tissues. That process has already begun."
Kozmo.com pioneered rapid delivery in 2001 but collapsed within a year, a model that succeeded later through DoorDash and Uber Eats. The technology industry celebrates disruptive innovation, yet history shows first movers frequently fail: Friendster and MySpace lost to Facebook, Treo and BlackBerry fell to iPhone. ChatGPT dominated generative AI a year ago but now faces competition from Claude and others. However, AI differs from previous technologies. If ChatGPT becomes obsolete, it won't result from competitive failure but from the entire generative-AI sector becoming commoditized, a process already underway.
#first-mover-disadvantage #technology-disruption #ai-commoditization #market-timing #competitive-dynamics
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]