791 karma · joined January 8, 2016
However, You can see the same debate being played out around genetically modified foods. Fear is being created about the products. As opposed to diamonds that are worn on the outside, these are things being put in your body. I think it is fair to expect that the PR campaign from entrenched food companies will be significant here.
You can see the arguments being very similar here with animal cruelty, purity of the food and pathogens, etc. Synthetic diamonds don't have the flaws of regular diamonds, much less expensive, don't have the same toll on humans and our planet. Yet, the diamond industry has positioned them as not real and most people will gladly pay more for the "real deal".
I am optimistic that there is an inevitability to this market, but the first generation of start-ups are going to bear the additional cost of being the educators. It may be decades until the "educator tax" has been paid. From a product perspective this makes for a very unattractive market. The opposite dynamics of network effects. Where the early entrant has significantly higher barriers to entry than later entrants.
By definition, Microsoft Office scores 100%. What % less than 100% would be acceptable for Libre Office? If only 90% of the documents I produce render correctly in Microsoft Office, do any of the other features matter? It would be very interesting to have an objective test suite that calculates how close Libre Office is.
The other path is Google Docs which solves scenarios that are underserved by Microsoft. Like collaborative editing.
Imagine if presidential debates had real-time scoring of what was being said. Politifact is great, but 24h delay makes it substantially less impactful.
You can simplify and call OpenTable shitty, but they met this threshold with their customers. Their customer looked at their product and said, it's new and different, but it is worth it.
If you can't displace an existing solution you haven't got it right.
If the value is significantly greater and it is only about UI familiarity there are many ways around it. One way is to emulate the UI of the product you are displacing. This famously happened in the Word vs. WordPerfect wars.
If being able to take movies with you on your commute or on the plane is important, it doesn't matter if Netflix's UI is better since it isn't even accessible.
If on the other hand, you are mainly interested in streaming at home or where you have Wi-Fi, you could debate the merits of Netflix UI vs. Amazon UI.
Amazon has found a way to make any advantages Netflix has irrelevant for some set of users and some scenarios. And it looks like it is hard for Netflix to follow. The question is whether it will drive enough trial and adoption for Amazon.