Nice article on disintermediation from Tom Goodwin:
“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.
Something interesting is happening.”
To say the least . . .
Source:
The Battle Is For The Customer Interface
Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin)
TechCrunch March 3, 2015
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/
When your only product is essentially an interface and look-and-feel, then you are subject to rapid product development from your competition. Many of these highly valuable businesses replaced other similar highly valued businesses. AOL Online and Myspace were replaced by Facebook and Twitter in very short order. Google replaced Netscape. Palm and Blackberry were replaced by Apple iOS and Android in only a decade.
So how do you really value a company when its product could be easily supplanted by a competitor in a decade? This is why Warren Buffet buys a railroad instead of a tech company. It would be virtually impossible to build a new US railroad today from scratch.
This is merely the logical progression of the economic flattening imposed by the internet and global markets, the stuff Tom Friedman wrote about in ‘The World Is Flat’, and Albert-László Barabási put a more mathematical perspective to in ‘Linked’ …