DescentBB

So here we have crappy free email. 2 megs, 6 megs an account. And then Google comes along with this outrageous size of 1 gig mailboxes. Then, all of a sudden, mailbox sizes in Yahoo, Hotmail and soon to be other free email services jump orders of magnitude.

The slogan seems to be, if you want the world to change, best it by a 1000 percent.

So my imagination runs wild and thinks "What if we did this with Internet speed, or graphics cards or the space race?" Instead of having a goal to make the most money each iteration, work to completely out do the competition and gourge them for customers. You would have to be pretty slick to pull it off and make a profit, but innovation would go through the roof it seems.

Just a thought.

World seems to work that way but with hardware I tinhk it would be a bit harder.

CDN_Merlin wrote:World seems to work that way but with hardware I tinhk it would be a bit harder.

Software, or more feasibly, services then.

Look at Internet Explorer, once offered free, Netscape was forced to make theirs free and open source.

Next may be web hosting 500 megabytes free or the like.

Well the problem is not all companies are ran by people with doctorates. Or let their employees dedicate 20% of their time to whatever the hell they want.

We do need more companies like Google, simply because it sounds like the place I'd want to work.

Topher wrote:So here we have crappy free email. 2 megs, 6 megs an account. And then Google comes along with this outrageous size of 1 gig mailboxes. Then, all of a sudden, mailbox sizes in Yahoo, Hotmail and soon to be other free email services jump orders of magnitude.

Hotmail's still stuck at 2mb, last I heard. It would be nice if they caught up with Yahoo, though.

Deleted

i like the way you're thinking Topher. idealistic.

but if this were 60years ago, you'd be a political prisoner for what you just said. crazy yes.

if you ever want to start a company, i'll be lining up to be a partner or work in it.

(ps: not a 1000% increase, it's closer to 20,000%)

have you got thinking about this topic because of the implications of the X-prize perhaps?

Vindicator wrote: Hotmail's still stuck at 2mb, last I heard. It would be nice if they caught up with Yahoo, though.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/0 ... 217&tid=95

roid wrote:i like the way you're thinking Topher. idealistic.

but if this were 60years ago, you'd be a political prisoner for what you just said. crazy yes.

if you ever want to start a company, i'll be lining up to be a partner or work in it.

(ps: not a 1000% increase, it's closer to 20,000%)

have you got thinking about this topic because of the implications of the X-prize perhaps?

The only problem is if I did it, I would be worried about going over board because I can dream way bigger than my wallet could allow.

What got me thinking about this was the miracles of competition, and what the theoretical limits are instead of the buisness and profit margin limits.
How about, sign up for Amazon.com email and get a free segway. Then maybe hotmail would offer a Porsche and Google would give you free plane tickets for a year. If one company could figure it out, the others would be pushed into high gear to do it so as not to lose their customers. Competition breeds productivity.

I'm not sure where the X-prize is going to go yet. Yes we may get sub-orbital flights. But there's a long way to go before anything becomes commercially viable. Accidents are going to happen and they probably won't be pretty. Maybe I would start getting really excited if someone achieves orbital flight on their own.

But, if some nation other than the US out there was to launch a mission to mars next year, we would see an explosive amount of effort to get an American up there too.

Nah, Roid, we'd just sabotoge them, I'm sure.

Companies that give their customers too much value usually get accused of being "anti-competitive", and end up in trouble with the DOJ. Often they come through it ok (Microsoft and Walmart are doing just fine), but there are plenty of people who would like to see them punished more.

Topher wrote: The only problem is if I did it, I would be worried about going over board because I can dream way bigger than my wallet could allow.
...

yeah you'd need someone (more traditionalist) on board to keep you tied down somewhat so you don't do things like spend $5million on a cupholder. don't go hiring ME for that

Tophaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah wrote: ...
But, if some nation other than the US out there was to launch a mission to mars next year, we would see an explosive amount of effort to get an American up there too.

the cool thing about the X-prize is that it's not nation dependant. in my mind that holds great importance, any INDIVIDUAL group can go for it. nationalism's not my thing (i'd go as far as saying it's the enemy, but i've got some wine in me, so i'm probabaly saying all kinds of crap in this post ).

aldel wrote:Companies that give their customers too much value usually get accused of being "anti-competitive", and end up in trouble with the DOJ. Often they come through it ok (Microsoft and Walmart are doing just fine), but there are plenty of people who would like to see them punished more.

MS knows EXACTLY what it's doing, don't give me this:
Microsoft: "oh! is this anti-competitive is it? we're just trying to be the best we can be, FOR THE CHILDREN!!!"
garbage.

roid wrote:

aldel wrote:Companies that give their customers too much value usually get accused of being "anti-competitive", and end up in trouble with the DOJ. Often they come through it ok (Microsoft and Walmart are doing just fine), but there are plenty of people who would like to see them punished more.

MS knows EXACTLY what it's doing, don't give me this:
Microsoft: "oh! is this anti-competitive is it? we're just trying to be the best we can be, FOR THE CHILDREN!!!"
garbage.

Making money? Yup, that's gotta be a crime or something, otherwise the government wouldn't be trying to protect us from our own money by taxes.

haha?