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Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Related anecdote: mega-brand Kodak died because film retailers threatened to stop carrying film if Kodak made serious moves into digital photography, as retailers relied on foot traffic driven by film (enter store once to buy film, again to return it, again to pick up photo prints). Kodak couldn’t risk its money printer, so couldn’t be ready when consumers switched to digital practically overnight.

Ditto cars. Manufacturers are beholden to dealers, who need complex vehicles that need extensive repairs. Related, fueling stations need customers who can’t power vehicles at home.

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If I remember the Kodak case well - their own research predicted that digital cameras will massively shrink the total addressable market. Which is exactly what happened. Outside of professionals or hobbyist, who even buys a camera nowadays?

No amount of innovation, pivoting or clever engineering could have saved Kodak. They were not flabbergasted at the technological change. The best course of action was to milk the existing market for as long as possible, which is exactly what they did

The real irony is that parts of Kodak where totally on top of digital photography before anyone else. They built both the first digital stills camera and the first commercially available digital SLR. In fact there was a time in the 90s where they owned the (admittedly very small) digital SLR market. However the film side of the business convinced the senior executives to kill the digital side of the business, to protect their film margins.

I think this explains their delay to electrify, but at this point they all realize Tesla is an existential threat that must be competed against. They essentially let Tesla prove the market and now they know what their competing with. Dealers and service revenue is the analog to the buggy whip industry, it has to go. On what time horizon is the question.

Fuelling stations just need traffic. The fuel itself is break-even, they're corner stores with a gimmick to get you in the door.

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