http://relativisticobserver.blogspot.com/2015/11/rapidly-growing-niche.html?showComment=1458758870054#c7494278038077251657
For anyone bothering to read my comment posts over at the quoted linked blog of my former boss who now works at Apple, please note the following comment post has not yet appeared on the blog (apparently waiting for moderator approval). Also I am not sure if my recent comment posts there which appear for me, are also visible for other readers. So readers may want to check back at that blog page after a few days when presumably Mark will have approved all my comments for publishing on his blog.
The following is best read while listening to this (challenge yourself to listen to both the words of the song and read the following simultaneously):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDC82LCZ2Z4
I intended to imply a shift from behemoths who can't afford to disrupt themselves towards nimbler teams which don't incur a massive retrenchment when their core business is disrupted with a technology that generates a thousandth of the profit. Apple gets 63% of its revenue from iPhone which is being disrupted by Google which gets 83% of its revenue from advertising thus can afford to drive the direct profits on smart phones to a thousandth (for Google).
The yen and yang is that closed and open source each has an optimum use case. Open source is ideal for code that must be maximally scoured for bugs and more saliently where distrusting teams (with different vested interests) depend on that same code base. Trustless, permissionless systems scale better. Any platform (including a payment system) will need to be open source in order to gain maximum support and network effects. Thus open source scales network effects better than closed source.
I concur wholeheartedly closed source is superior for the creative process and tapping new markets, for the reasons you very eloquently stated. So companies will still build moats around some proprietary intellectual property, but this property will be leaner, nimbler and leverage a lot of open source. These teams can then afford to disrupt themselves or some other team can. The behemoths carry too much inertia and are so large are tempting power vacuum bed mates with the regulators and legislators; and while they fend off their monopoly they injure society and then they injure again when they crash and retrench.
Trying to be objectively data driven here. Android is proving that now blasting through the roof to 84% global market share after starting from 5% back in 2009 when Apple and RIM had 67% Comscore USA share. The iPhone has dropped from a peak of 32% USA share to oscillating around roughly half that for global share. I read Android has passed iPhone on total profit and App downloads. The writing appears to be on the wall. Microsoft open sourced Windows' interoption with hardware vendors and that is ostensibly one major reason Windows adoption outpaced the MacOS. History appears to be repeating, with Google disrupting both Apple and Microsoft.
No amount of monkeying around the distinctions and interoption of tablets, laptops and smartphone can rescue Apple. Apple needs another big hit to replace iPhone profits as Android will broaden its quality and have more network effects to cannabalize the reasons for preferring an iPhone.
Next some new Steve Jobs (maybe his name is Shelby, lol) will disrupt Google's advertising monetization model. Many nimbler teams are working on this as we speak. So I must continue to argue the behemoths are going away and permanently, but not overnight.
Nimbler startups can offer RSUs, flex schedule, and big rewards for innovation, but the risk is very high. But with great risk comes great reward. I think also people are enjoying being able to work virtually most of the time and come together for brief jamming stints to get synchronized and mutually jazzed. I think the mavericks will choose to go for it. What have we got to lose? We only live once. Might as well try for greatness. My football coach said you only fail when you don't try. And you are defeated only when you don't stand up and try again.
How many Mercedes Benz does one programmer need .
I really admired Steve's insights and intincts. Replicate that and keep the collaboration within expert teams and even cross-team collaboration in the nimber model. Or do you see a reason not?