Detroit’s downfall came from Japanese makers who found ways to make vehicles cheaper, more efficient and eventually safer.
The “Big Three” U.S. automakers conspired to introduce new features to the market slowly so as to have something new to sell each model year. They withheld safety and ergonomic improvements until they needed something new to market.
The Japs came in and immediately offered these improvements that Detroit wouldn’t feature and sliced a thick chunk of Detroit’s competitive advantage.
Facebook has no product. Consumers are their product. Same with Twitter. Both are extremely vulnerable to the same fate as MySpace. Amazon is essentially the Wal-Mart of the Net and I doubt they will die off anytime soon. Apple also has a product to sell. Google is hard to project.
I worked for Ford for a brief period after grad school and was shocked at the attitude of management.
Management knew best and any thinking which disagreed with that of management was verboten.
I was interview by a guy who eventually became CFO and he asked me what kind of car I drove and why. I drove a VW bug and told him exactly why (and shared my creative thinking with him). I was at the top of my finance class and thought I had some good ideas re: the future of automobiles. Wrong.
They still made me a very attractive offer which, like a fool, I took. But I think that put a cap on my career there.
I left within a year out of boredom.
Amazon is essentially the Wal-Mart of the Net and I doubt they will die off anytime soon.
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Ya never really know.
WalMart is competing w/Amazon on line, while downsizing their brick & mortar operations in terms of employees. Most of my local store checkouts are automated. Stock has been consolidated, with many name brand items eliminated. Rumors abound (online)that the suits have installed *secret* mics in the checkouts to monitor people’s reactions. In my area, these conversations, vis-a-vis WMs changes, are NSFW. (OTOH, the store manager was clueless about this rumor, which doesn’t mean it isn’t true)
IDK. I’m old to enough to remember when Sears and J.C. Penny dominated retail. Who ever thought the future would be one where people paid to wear logos? In 1958, in a HS class, we had to prepare a report on the future. I chose fashion as a topic and drew a model with green hair. Sneers ensued. “Who would ever dye their hair green?” I wonder if that person has grandchildren today?
As to Goog:I bet they survive, thrive and continue to dominate. Google’s version of the office suite is taught in the schools. Even this old lady uses it. Will I continue to pay for Microsoft Office? I’m beginning to question why. Word is no more private than Docs, once I enable editing.
When I notified all my accounts of an email/phone change, I did not notify Google. When I went to my Google account, they already knew.
I think the future happens to us as a confluence of events and influences. We take our milieu for granted. We’re too close, too immersed to evaluate it objectively.
I bet lots of folks went broke on buggy whip futures.