Oddbean

If we've got a truly superior product, the world wouldn't hesitate to make the switch. Think about it – for centuries, we've centered our lives around houses and built entire industries around them. Yet, within just few decades of the introduction of cars, those horse-related industries vanished. Everyone uses cars now. It would have been hard to imagine just few decades earlier. All we really need is a superior product.

I think network effects and hesitation to change (lack of understation, reputation, fear) plays a role. Can't recall who said it, but essentially a new product must be at least 10x better than existing solutions. I would assume this is easier to asses in physical day-to-day things (e.g. car over horse, oil over coal etc.) but more difficult with abstract technologies such as money, software. That's why imo true innovation (which is >10x better) has a hockey stick moment but can have a slow phase of adoption before. I suppose that, in the case of #bitcoin or also #Nostr, the value is not yet recognized/understood by most, and as such it's not seend as exceeding the 10x threshold yet. Just a thought.

I heard also a logic/effect that says, you can't really innovate too much. You need to keep a lot of things people already know, otherwise they won't change because of the upfront effort to learn it/use it. I think it even has a name, even designers use it, but can't recall.

Yes, makes sense. But you could also say that in such a case it's not enough different (10x) or the problem it tries to solve is not really a problem, hence people don't move to it/buy it. Just think about smartphones or cars. No real innovation for years in the basics (transportation, communication). The incremental changes are marketed as innovation (e.g. Iphones).

💯 I think the problem is the most important. Does it solve a real problem? Does it worth me the extra work to solve my problem? Because at the end, I might be able to solve the problem in another way, that is less convenient, but cheaper, so it does not worth to switch to this new thing maybe. So kind of the "quality improvements" matter. How much my life gets better compared to its cost? Does that worth it? And the "worth it" can also be in time as well.

👍 agree. Real innovation will replace existing solution, what we call disruption. Bitcoin is doing that to money/banking and many other aspects of life we may not even recognize yet. Same might likely be true for nostr.

It can be hard, because what is truly superior? It shall be truly superior to the mainstream to really get that fast adoption I guess. And also timing might play a big role. You can have a really superior idea, but people might need to "mature" to see its superiorness. What do you think?

I believe a superior product would encompass all existing features, such as recommendation algorithms and intelligent filters, while still allowing users to have full control over them. This would be akin to the difference between using public transport, versus having your own personal car. These things will take some time but that's the direction we are headed to.