If we had the sketch to how toilet paper was first developed would we hold it this level of reverence?
What is the fascination with such trivial technologies grabbing a mindshare?
What is the fascination with such trivial technologies grabbing a mindshare?
Yes, of course. In fact, it'd probably be a museum piece.
> What is the fascination with such trivial technologies grabbing a mindshare?
The same as with your fascination with this fascination; ie., we like to try to understand what makes people do what they do. There's an inner sociologist in most of us.
Seeing Jack's drawing and reading the description on how Twitter took 5-6 years from "idea" to first implementation shows that this system/method works (at least it worked for him). I do not claim I will design the next twitter-size-business, but hey, it is a mental exercise.
I believe that many in this forum have the imagination, methodology, discipline to build on an idea, and we see plenty of "Show HN" to prove this right.
If the invention of toilet paper has an equally exciting story.. (I read about it a few days ago)(not exciting imho)(great thing for humanity though!)
Neither the technology nor the product seem to jump out of the paper... Just like toilet paper. Which is not bad but doesn't require more attention.
The other problem is around this set of ideas that grab users attention for quick bites that are essentially empty calories. I feel that these are gamified, product hacked versions that are hard to replicate but ultimately not inspiring.
Today no one can turn their own micropublishing idea into a Twitter competitor, because by the time it achieves even 0.1% of Twitter’s success, Twitter will just clone its features to kill its momentum.
Facebook clones features or as a company has various spin offs. I thought twitter stayed pretty true to form?
Although your point stands. If you are using a cool feature to differentiate and that feature is cloneable, there is risk that one of the large players will implement it.