Nostr Web Client

I’m sure the good folks at Apple remember how Kodak came up with the digital camera first and fought it because it didn’t fit their business model.

George Eastman was a pioneer in the camera industry and started Kodak in my home town of Rochester, NY.

As a kid in Rochester I learned about Kodak the same way one learns about Presidents and important history. The same is true for Danny Wegman who invented the world’s best grocery store, also in Rochester.

Even in my AP economics classes, most off the off the cuff examples were about Kodak. They employed thousands of people and had been a staple in Rochester since the late 1880s. The company’s fate was intertwined with the city’s.

The word Kodak was synonymous with taking pictures. Special moments were “Kodak Moments” and this wasn’t a flash in the pan either. Kodak adapted and flexed through the decades. Time and again they were on the front lines on technology and chose to lead.

But Kodak didn’t make their money from selling cameras. The company was profitable because they sold film so people could use their cameras. The only competition I’m aware of on this axis was Fuji.

But my memory here is skewed since using Fuji film where I lived was blasphemous.

cjasonmaier 2y ago

Plenty of examples of this. Peloton has now gotten more money from me by selling monthly access to the beautiful people meant to train me than they ever did by selling me the actual bike.

So why was Kodak able to weather storms and massive tech innovation since 1888 to become the predominant company to sell cameras, but they weren’t able to adjust when digital cameras came along? Even though they were the first to have them?

The business model was threatened. If you get money from selling film, a film-less camera isn’t an opportunity, it is a threat. Kodak could see no path to adapt. Who knows if there was one?

Of course, now we have Apple that is threatening to shut down apps like Damus because it allows people to transfer value directly peer to peer. Not being able to position themselves in the middle of transactions is a threat to Apple’s business model.

This isn’t speculation, Apple has said that when value is transferred in the app, it must be as an in-app purchase. This is because they get a cut. They sold you a phone just so they can sell you the in-app purchases. This is like Kodak’s film.

So why do we care? Why are people all over nostr and Twitter all bent out of shape about this?

Because you still need Apple. Decentralized money and decentralized social media are not promises. They require work and a pathway for normal folks to adopt them.

This is true for both Bitcoin and Nostr and while both are promising and should make the world better, we can’t just assume they will be successes.

Regular folks are going to use Apple to get themselves onboarded to both of these technologies.

Who knows what will happen with Apple and Damus? There are a lot of possible outcomes, not all of them good.

But there is hope. There is good news coming out of all this.

Let it be known that Bitcoin and Nostr are seen as threats. Not just theoretical or metaphorical. Actual bottom line revenue threats. If you had any doubt before you can put it aside. They are fighting us, and that is good news.

The downfall of Apple seems unlikely. And just because the same was true for Kodak doesn’t make anything inevitable.

Frictionless, peer to peer transfer of value using open protocols is better, and should win in the end. But will it? 🤷‍♂️

1. They ignore you

2. They laugh at you

3. They fight you

4. ?????

5. You win.

#Bitcoin #nostr @damusapp

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

JG 2y ago

I think you're spot on. Admittedly, I can't see Apple's downfall either, but that's largely because they're so dominant in the right-now. But history is littered with examples of huge companies that fail to adapt just like Kodak: Pan Am Airlines, Blockbuster Video to name a couple. These were giants in their field and have vanished. What often happens with companies like this is some other disruption occurs that undermines what made the incumbent special - in the case of Pan Am, it was Southwest, who innovated the customer experience and cost to fly rather than the focusing on flight tech itself; they did this by capitalizing on the deregulation of airlines; in the case of Blockbuster, well, we all know what happened there. I think the underlying root cause of the failure is when companies get large enough, they become too risk averse partly resulting from corporate inertia.

The one thing that Steve Jobs did well was recognize when adaptation was necessary. I'm not so confident that the bean-counter Tim Cook has that same ability and vision. Apple has to be careful. Personally, for all of Google's faults I've long preferred Android phones. They're not "open", but they're *more* open than Apple's walled garden.