[Discuss] Its not possible to make things easier for users

[bogstad at pobox.com (Bill Bogstad)]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 1:34 AM, Rich Braun <richb at pioneer.ci.net> wrote:
> All that talk about cars and smart-phone marketshare led me to two thoughts:
>

> 2) Market-share, like so many statistics, lies in how you quote the stats.  At
> my last employer, we were kind of the Apple of online male-dating sites:  the
> biggest market-share as measured in dollars.  Over time about 30 (probably
> more by now) competitors have emerged, some of which claim more users.  But
> first-mover advantage meant that my (now former) employer had already gobbled
> up the people who were actually willing to /pay/ a monthly fee for service
> (like all those fanboys who stand in line outside retail stores for reasons
> that mystify me):  the newer companies have to get by on the scraps of
> advertising dollars.  So I would ask:  if you're owner/shareholder of a
> company claiming leading market-share, which would you rather have?  The
> biggest number of customers, or the biggest number of dollars?  Kudos to
> Samsung for gaining customers, but IMHO they still have catching-up to do.

If they are both making a profit off their customer base, then the
company managing to eek out profits even though each customer is
paying less might very well win out in the end.   I would liken the
situation to be similar to what was described in the "The Innovator's
Dilemma" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma).
The low earnings per customer company might very well be able to move
upscale profitably, but the high earnings per customer company may
very well have developed an internal cost structure that make going in
the opposite direction infeasible.

Bill Bogstad