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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

Two things that actual banking and travel industry experts told me in 1995: "nobody will do banking over the Internet" and "nobody will book travel on the Web".

The reasons they provided sounded completely plausible - but turned out to also be completely wrong.

So I'd be careful about "experts" dismissing ideas based on their incorrect assumptions.

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In 1995, Quicken, Money, and Managing Your Money already had the ability to dial-up to banks, retrieve your balances, and even move money around.

In 1995, there was already airline reservation capability on CompuServe, AOL, and the like. I don't remember if you could actually buy the tickets, or if you had to call in your credit card number. But that's just a detail. The thing that really disintermediated the travel agent is the ability to search through the listings.

I think the people you talked to simply had a vested interest in the existing way of doing things. They were in the banking and the travel industries. The tech industry, by contrast, already had other ideas.

This is also related to the fact that there is no static >Internet<. It's changing every day. In 1995 you won't have thought of >banking in your pocket<. Today, as so many people use the internet, everything can happen.

To innovate you have to be far-seeing. Besides of other circumstance, you have a good chance to be successful with an idea.

But for somebody starting a company in 1995, online banking would probably have been a bad idea.

E-trade had $11 million in revenue in 1994. By 1995 there was clearly a market for online transactions to people that had the vision.

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