I've been following it and wading through the endless stream of BS associated with it since back in 1995... and, since that time, my answer to every single "opportunity" I've been offered has always been to choose to survive.
In 1995, my VC "buds" thought I was "missing the boat"... and weren't happy with me panning their plays.
Now, we're at almost the opposite extreme in the market... with virtually everyone else in the market having given up any hope that there will ever be any real money made in this "BS"... and, I sure do still see a whole lot of wrong headed thinking about it... in a lot of players who are trying who still just "don't get it"...
I'm a long way from making any bets that Nokia will solve the puzzle... and, what I am seeing of them doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in their ever uniquely "getting it"...
So, I think your first reaction is spot on.
I'll bet there will be number of folks who'd look at that statement from them, roll their eyes... and sell.
It's not really an overly popular concept, right now...given two decades of persistent failure.
But, I think we're FINALLY at a point where the puzzle is actually soluble... the tech is capable enough now... the market is "probably" ready... which you still won't know until you give them something they find useful... that's more useful than what you're extracting from them in enabling it that isn't.
An always on mobile spam portal sucking up your bandwidth, bit usage and $... while constantly annoying you... doesn't strike me as a thing most people will find useful. I think that is a fair description of what most now intend to make of it.
I think the remaining obstacles now are almost purely... intellectual... because they're all still thinking about it wrong... in exactly the same way they have been wrong since 1995...
Its like, back in the days of the Wright Brothers... those guys saying airplanes will never matter... just missing that someone would find a new way to make them useful in providing a service people wanted. Only, here, its proven true that the tech doesn't matter... even while they've progressed from fabric covered wings to building 777's. They're turning them out, parking em on the ramp, still looking at em, and having nothing to say but, "damn, it flies, but no one's ever going to come with an actually viable use for this crap"... because no one has ever solved the problem of how to make it do something people really WANT...
They've got the tech down alright... they're just wholly incapable of considering using it in ways that would actually provide what people want... and, ramming always on spam down the pipes... never was "it" and it still ain't it... |
