• The Pantser@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    We’ve certainly seen companies fall because they’ve not tried to stay on the cutting edge before

    Best example I can think of is Kodak and digital cameras. They invented it then sat on it until it was too late because they didn’t want to cut into their film scam.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Sears had a massive mail order catalog. Easy to switch that to Internet, right? But they decided to focus on stores.

        • 4am@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          It’s quite unbelievable that it was literally right there. The logistics were like 60% solved for them already, the remaining 40% was just making sure the online content remained linked with inventory and fulfillment, and expanding that capacity.

          “We think online shopping will be just a fad” - the unimaginable hubris…

          • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I was refreshing myself on wiki. They launched prodigy, but it was too early for online shopping to be popular. So they probably got a bad taste for that kind of thing. A thing in venture capital is that it’s all about timing.

            • 4am@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Ohh I forgot they did Prodigy. It was such a WEIRD experience; it seemed to drop you down into this BBS/DOS mode, and none of the navigation was very similar to everything else on any PC/Mac at the time. I enjoyed some of the games on it but I really didn’t know what to think otherwise. We didn’t keep it very long.

              • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Can you fill us in in what it was exactly? I’m rather confused but I think I got online store out of it man

    • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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      3 months ago

      Nokia. They were at the top before iPhone. They couldn’t catch up with smart phones at all.

      I believe Intel will be another potential example, but we’ll see about that.