As Washington technocrats get hot and bothered by the growth of Google, Facebook and Apple, demanding more and more regulation as a check against their march toward inevitable Internet dominance, maybe we should stop and realize how many so-called “hot” companies, products and technologies were suddenly torpedoed by a new product or concept.
Those who are prone to believe that today’s market juggernauts are entrenched forever, and worse, wish to base public policy on this notion, might wish to check out Baseline magazine’s recent review of six great product flame-outs. Note that hysteria over some of these examples, like MySpace, resulted in ill-conceived laws with consequences that linger on. So, before we despair over the Googlization of Everything, or conversely, throw billions of taxpayer dollars to buy every child a PC laptop notebook Kindle iPad, we should keep in mind what’s here today may be disintermediated tomorrow.