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I don't think it's useful or accurate to attempt a value judgment on "disruption" in general. It means massive change, the results of which can and likely will be good for some people, bad for others, and neutral for some as well.

Being optimistic (or pessimistic, really) about such a broad concept doesn't make sense. Could positive consequences come out of any massive change? Depending on your point of view, perhaps, with exactly the same probability (undefined) as negative consequences.

Current companies' and industries' goodness or badness are almost always a matter of perspective (though some are easier to argue one way or the other, again, depending on your point of view). Removing or stunting them with a new paradigm certainly changes things, but rarely if ever in a black and white, "things are universally [better|worse] now" way.




In other words: disruptive innovation is likely not strongly Pareto optimal in most cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency

That's not to say it's not an overall improvement though.


Disruption is by definition not Pareto optimal since it is bad for those disrupted. What's your point?


Bear in mind this cycle:

Disruption starts --> Early Adopters modify behaviour --> If huge, global population adopt as well --> Disillusionment, new needs coming up --> New disruption would be needed then, but corporations are slow and clumsy and sometimes are not able to adapt as faster as the market does.

This is the case of Amazon as it's been the case of many more in the past. You cannot eternally grow without decreasing your value at some time, reformulating your value proposition and launching your new proposal to the market.

So this is normal to me. Nothing strange. What sounds weird to solve the problems they are facing is their new proposal: a non-online store :/




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