Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ahhaha who wrote (3717)	1/1/1999 3:19:00 AM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

AOL was the pioneer, so they'll get the rush. Who dominates is who has quality. The only thing AOL was first in was in creating a cheesy graphical interface with lots of pictures that required you to stay online fulltime while they charge you by the hour. AOL was a latecomer to the online world with a drastically inferior product whos only advantages were an appealing interface and a huge number of members due to their blanket mailings of disks. Yet they succeeded. What does that tell you? The public will always go after the better times cheaper. The parallel does hold in the AOL case Here is the heart of our disagreement. The "wise" always believe this, but it isn't true unless your timespan is measured in decades. The wise are so foolish. Look at what kind of floppy disk is in almost every computer made (except the iMAC) and think about the power of the standard. Compatability of a 500Mhz PII to the 4.88Mhz 8088 is at the heart of Intels success. People actually have better things to do than learn new computer programs! Understanding the intricacies of an OS like Windows is a slow and painful learning experience that noone wants to repeat. But at least you know everyone else has gone through the same thing and you can always look to them for help. Developing programs to run on more than one platform is equally as hard. People need standards. People demand standards. At the heart of all of the success of MSFT is the simple fact that MSDOS was defined a standard and MSFT was smart enough to keep changing the standard before anyone could copy them, and as you pointed out by keeping the price so low that it would have been an awesome economical risk to try to compete. AOL's standard is not as powerful but is based on the same principle. People have better things to do than learn about computers and the World Wide Web. They want to email their parents and chat with someone about gardening. They have jobs & children & pets and a kitchen they can never seem to keep clean. Eric