Topic: Companies aren't responsible for innovation, consumers are - page 3. (Read 689 times)

If the technology can solve some problems without denying, it can also create new ones.
It increased productivity but decreased employment and household income. Adding the inflation, I don't see how great it is for the average Joe.
In the medical industry, there is no doubt that technology is a must and we should be happy with the progress done still now.



Watch this video talk https://www.ted.com/talks/jason_pontin_can_technology_solve_our_big_problems

This is so far away from the truth.Just read some Steve Jobs interveiws or quotations.He says that consumers just don't know what they want and it's pointless to execute consumer research surveys.
The big corporations can create demand using marketing and advertising,so your point ins't valid.

There is no cycle like that but there is some correlation between the consumers and innovator for sure. This is not a cycle for two directional communication which leads to creation of bridge. In this bridge the tech stands at mid-point and consumer and innovator on the both end. Investors are making deals for the purpose of profiting and the end user tries to lead innovation by giving feedbacks and trying to increase their comfort level. Now this is sensed by innovator create the idea. So there does exist a portion of people called as investor who are the one you referring to as consumers but they are agin third parties here according to me. They never use the techs, they just profit themselves.

There are statistics relating to how economic productivity has roughly doubled from the 1950s leading up to the present. This implies a worker in 2018 is twice as productive as a worker in 1950 working the same number of hours at the same job. Rising productivity is correlated with technological advancement and improvement in various methodologies utilized across industry.

If wealth and wage inequality were equivalent to what it was in 1950 the average worker would likely have a much easier time affording healthcare, housing, higher education. Standard of living would be higher. The average work day could be shorter. I think everyone knows distribution is the most relevent stat when it comes to productivity, wealth, wages and their link to overall qualify of life. We've seen the distribution of wealth shift dramatically towards the most wealthy demographic over the past 70 years, a shift which has nullified any gains which otherwise might have trickled down.

"The aim of industry is not primarily to satisfy essential human needs with a minimal productive effort, but to multiply the number of needs, factitious and fictitioius, and accommodate them to the maximum mechanical capacity to produce profits. These are the sacred principle of the power complex. Not the least effort of this system is that of replacing selectivity and quantitative restriction by indiscriminate and incontinent consumption.  --Lewis Mumford"

One of the issues (as mentioned by Lewis Mumford above) is the artificially built in tendency to deliberately create inefficiency and waste in global supply chains, manufacturing processes and elsewhere to inflate profits. This trend runs contrary to technological progress advancing to a point where people might gain greater individual independence and not rely as much on corporations, jobs or governments as providers.

Suffice it to say there are a number of forces in opposition or support of each other and like some quasi form of feng shui how those energies align or interact is difficult to predict. Circumstances could easily develop one way, only to influence a strong counter movement which could have a net opposite effect. From a physics perspective we might project upper limits of energy generation, food production and similar stats to illustrate a portrait of what type of technology would be necessary for people to be self sufficient in a way which breaks the traditional producer -> consumer paradigm we have enjoyed throughout history.

Anyways I'm sure everyone got bored and didn't bother to read this so hopefully it was worth something.

Technology is coming not only from the demand, but also from the companies' motivation too when they are producing the goods. So I disagree if it is said that consumers the only one who is responsible for innovation, no. It's companies and consumers' responsibility since they are in the same circle that depends on each other to keep their existence.   

Part of it is true due to the nature of consumers: they tend to ask for more than what they should receive and in order to keep their peers coming back, companies deliver. Some companies, on the other hand think outside the box and deliver innovation that the consumers never asked, and after some time the consumer slowly accepted and praised the said innovation. With that being said, merchant-consumer relationship is, at most times symbiotic since the merchants provide what the consumer needs, and in turn, the consumers support the merchants' products.

Companies just provide what their customers need.
They innovate and make researches to provide better services and better products.
It is not a cycle, it is a continuous work and each invention leads to another.

If there is need for something then someone will try to find that but in the modern corporate world lot of products were found and we are convinced by them to use that but we don't have any useful from that product when we research about it carefully.

As far as I'm concerned, companies must focus on developing to meet the needs of the consumer. Therefore to change the trend of continuous development, we must rely on more money. So Bitcoin economy has changed your how you have to understand investing in Bitcoin for the development of its capital for future profitable growth.

They wouldn't have had the budgets to put into research and development and have the motivation to scale their products and make them cheaper if large amounts of people weren't able to purchase them. In this case, smartphone use wouldn't be possible unless internet connectivity and accessibility weren't widespread, which is also driven by consumer demand.

If a company made a be-all and end-all smartphone, they would go out of business. There always has to be room for more growth and more scalability. People have bills to pay and more things to buy.

I agree that all major innovations start with raw ideas, but they still definitely take human nature into account or they would never succeed. Satoshi had a genius idea because people hate being dependent on things they can't control.

That's not exactly how it works, technology evolves in many directions. Hardware not only becomes faster, but also more cost-efficient. A decade ago smartphones were for the middle class, today even very poor people in third world countries have them, and functionally there's really not that much difference between them. So, irrational consumerism is not the only reason behind innovation.

Next, if entrepreneurs were only taking existing demand into account, we'd still be living in stone age. All major innovations start with raw ideas without thinking too much about potential users. Satoshi created Bitcoin and showed it to a small group of crypto enthusiasts, he didn't bother spending time on marketing. He knew that if technology is good, people will come on their own, because the word will spread.

Tech giants are usually praised as holding complete responsibility for innovation, but you can' t have supply without demand.

People are programmed to compulsively desire the latest and greatest thing, which is why they are willing to justify working so hard in jobs most of them hate, or trade bitcoin lol.

If this scenario weren't happening, tech companies wouldn't have the budgets to create the incredible technology that we now have.

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?