100 years ago, citizens didn't complain about smog and lack of parking spots, but about horse dung and sometimes even the smell of dead horse carcasses in the streets. If you had a carriage company back then and heard about combustion engines that will replace the horse, you would have thought: No way! After all the horse has been the best transportation method for thousands of years. 20 Years later, horses were banned from the streets and cars replaced the old technology, except for rural areas to nearly 100 percent.
Once Kodak was one of the most successful companies that produced cameras. Why? Because they were investing into color film early when everyone else believed in black and white films. Ironically, one of their engineers developed the first digital camera. This technology was not invested in. Today, the digital camera is norm, and Kodak is out of business.
One of my favorite example, how a successful company overslept a technology or trend they invented themselves is Blizzard: A user built map was extremely successful, and Blizzard executives should have realised the potential to make a new game out of it. They didn't until way to late. Dota and League of Legends have grown beyond any games Blizzard ever made on their own, and when they tried to jump the train with Heroes of the Storm, but then it was way to late.
Companies that went out of business because they didn't realise a new technology are countless. Think of Nokia, Blackberry, Pan Am, Polaroid etc.
Here comes the Bitcoin, redefining how a transaction of money should look like:
- secure
- without fees
Which businesses do you think are in danger because of this new technology?
Obviously it will be the payment schemes or remittances services like Paypal or Western Union if bitcoin will grow to be the payment method that Satoshi as originally envisioned. Sadly though bitcoin has turned out to be a store of value or investment portfolio specially when institutional investors came in.
Let's see how it goes, if it can disrupt or at least take a slice out of the payment processing industry, or any other payment business processing model. Imagine online stores and merchants accepting bitcoin as payment system how disrupted in can be against with the likes of Paypal, or sending money across the globe in a instant, how will Western Union react?
