Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Nobody said that. Literally nobody.
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I heard this stuff often from business school types.
When the video disc was introduced, I saw a device of tremondous potential. It could hold all words from a dictionary. The same response. Why would anyone need that? None of the engineers I worked with could understand a purpose for a 'read only' device other than movies. Same myopia then as I see now. Business school types routtinely stifle innovation because because nobody can cite a useful product using that technology.
Same myopia occurred with the laser. Nobody could think of a useful purpose for coherent light. Why was expensive light more useful than existing incoherent light? That response was universal.
Same occurred with liquid crystals demonstrated in RCA in the early 1960s. RCA eventually killed the group in Raritan NJ that was developing LCDs. Because nobody could propose a product. LCD was another example of innovaton that only wasted money.
Nobody could see purpose in a microprocessor. Intel published a maybe 100 item list of potential applications including traffic lights. It was universally scoffed at since relays did that job just fine. Ironically, even Intel never proposed a microprocessor as a computer. In 100 so listed purposals, even Intel never once mentioned a computer. Provide the solution. Then problems are quickly identified and solved.
Why does Bell Labs all but no longer exist? Because AT&T (and then Lucent) decided research on ideas without a purpose must be eliminated. Therefore one of America's greatest source of innovation was destroyed. By troglodytes who know nobody needs it because a product cannot be defined.
I specifically remember management in JC Penny's processing center state that nobody needed more than 64K modems. These easily transfered data from magnetic tapes to other JC Penny data centers throughout the nation just fine on four wire 64K modems in the 1970s. That was more than fast enough. Troglodytes are widepread.
We are expected to learn from history. Google is installing faster internet because so many in Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner have this silly idea that 20 Mb is fast enough for everyone. Using myopic reasoning, a purpose for 100 Mb does not exist. Same business school types refused to restore wired (copper or fiber) services in highly urban areas in Mantalokin NJ and Fire Island NY.
These duopolies refuse to up broadband speeds using same reasons used to stifle DSL. They don't want to increase backbone speeds unless someone else pays for it (the reason for destroying net neutrality). And they do not want to service more rural areas or even some parts of the most urban state such as Mantalokin NJ. Like GM, they only want to make profits - screw better products. This same reasoning even destroyed the Bell Labs.
BTW, how many today know what the Bell Laboratories were? I am surprised that a majority do not.