Companies aren't responsible for innovation, consumers are

[Ladysmith]

Tech giants are usually praised as holding complete responsibility for innovation, but you can' t have supply without demand.

People are programmed to compulsively desire the latest and greatest thing, which is why they are willing to justify working so hard in jobs most of them hate, or trade bitcoin lol.

If this scenario weren't happening, tech companies wouldn't have the budgets to create the incredible technology that we now have.

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?

[hatshepsut93]

That's not exactly how it works, technology evolves in many directions. Hardware not only becomes faster, but also more cost-efficient. A decade ago smartphones were for the middle class, today even very poor people in third world countries have them, and functionally there's really not that much difference between them. So, irrational consumerism is not the only reason behind innovation.

Next, if entrepreneurs were only taking existing demand into account, we'd still be living in stone age. All major innovations start with raw ideas without thinking too much about potential users. Satoshi created Bitcoin and showed it to a small group of crypto enthusiasts, he didn't bother spending time on marketing. He knew that if technology is good, people will come on their own, because the word will spread.

[Ladysmith]

That's not exactly how it works, technology evolves in many directions. Hardware not only becomes faster, but also more cost-efficient. A decade ago smartphones were for the middle class, today even very poor people in third world countries have them, and functionally there's really not that much difference between them. So, irrational consumerism is not the only reason behind innovation.

Next, if entrepreneurs were only taking existing demand into account, we'd still be living in stone age. All major innovations start with raw ideas without thinking too much about potential users. Satoshi created Bitcoin and showed it to a small group of crypto enthusiasts, he didn't bother spending time on marketing. He knew that if technology is good, people will come on their own, because the word will spread.

They wouldn't have had the budgets to put into research and development and have the motivation to scale their products and make them cheaper if large amounts of people weren't able to purchase them. In this case, smartphone use wouldn't be possible unless internet connectivity and accessibility weren't widespread, which is also driven by consumer demand.

If a company made a be-all and end-all smartphone, they would go out of business. There always has to be room for more growth and more scalability. People have bills to pay and more things to buy.

I agree that all major innovations start with raw ideas, but they still definitely take human nature into account or they would never succeed. Satoshi had a genius idea because people hate being dependent on things they can't control.

[mulukey]

As far as I'm concerned, companies must focus on developing to meet the needs of the consumer. Therefore to change the trend of continuous development, we must rely on more money. So Bitcoin economy has changed your how you have to understand investing in Bitcoin for the development of its capital for future profitable growth.

[Findingnemo]

Tech giants are usually praised as holding complete responsibility for innovation, but you can' t have supply without demand.

People are programmed to compulsively desire the latest and greatest thing, which is why they are willing to justify working so hard in jobs most of them hate, or trade bitcoin lol.

If this scenario weren't happening, tech companies wouldn't have the budgets to create the incredible technology that we now have.

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?

If there is need for something then someone will try to find that but in the modern corporate world lot of products were found and we are convinced by them to use that but we don't have any useful from that product when we research about it carefully.

[khaled0111]

Companies just provide what their customers need.
They innovate and make researches to provide better services and better products.
It is not a cycle, it is a continuous work and each invention leads to another.

[dothebeats]

Part of it is true due to the nature of consumers: they tend to ask for more than what they should receive and in order to keep their peers coming back, companies deliver. Some companies, on the other hand think outside the box and deliver innovation that the consumers never asked, and after some time the consumer slowly accepted and praised the said innovation. With that being said, merchant-consumer relationship is, at most times symbiotic since the merchants provide what the consumer needs, and in turn, the consumers support the merchants' products.

[KorakPawon]

Technology is coming not only from the demand, but also from the companies' motivation too when they are producing the goods. So I disagree if it is said that consumers the only one who is responsible for innovation, no. It's companies and consumers' responsibility since they are in the same circle that depends on each other to keep their existence.   

[Hydrogen]

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?

There are statistics relating to how economic productivity has roughly doubled from the 1950s leading up to the present. This implies a worker in 2018 is twice as productive as a worker in 1950 working the same number of hours at the same job. Rising productivity is correlated with technological advancement and improvement in various methodologies utilized across industry.

If wealth and wage inequality were equivalent to what it was in 1950 the average worker would likely have a much easier time affording healthcare, housing, higher education. Standard of living would be higher. The average work day could be shorter. I think everyone knows distribution is the most relevent stat when it comes to productivity, wealth, wages and their link to overall qualify of life. We've seen the distribution of wealth shift dramatically towards the most wealthy demographic over the past 70 years, a shift which has nullified any gains which otherwise might have trickled down.

"The aim of industry is not primarily to satisfy essential human needs with a minimal productive effort, but to multiply the number of needs, factitious and fictitioius, and accommodate them to the maximum mechanical capacity to produce profits. These are the sacred principle of the power complex. Not the least effort of this system is that of replacing selectivity and quantitative restriction by indiscriminate and incontinent consumption.  --Lewis Mumford"

One of the issues (as mentioned by Lewis Mumford above) is the artificially built in tendency to deliberately create inefficiency and waste in global supply chains, manufacturing processes and elsewhere to inflate profits. This trend runs contrary to technological progress advancing to a point where people might gain greater individual independence and not rely as much on corporations, jobs or governments as providers.

Suffice it to say there are a number of forces in opposition or support of each other and like some quasi form of feng shui how those energies align or interact is difficult to predict. Circumstances could easily develop one way, only to influence a strong counter movement which could have a net opposite effect. From a physics perspective we might project upper limits of energy generation, food production and similar stats to illustrate a portrait of what type of technology would be necessary for people to be self sufficient in a way which breaks the traditional producer -> consumer paradigm we have enjoyed throughout history.

Anyways I'm sure everyone got bored and didn't bother to read this so hopefully it was worth something.

[googs84]

There is no cycle like that but there is some correlation between the consumers and innovator for sure. This is not a cycle for two directional communication which leads to creation of bridge. In this bridge the tech stands at mid-point and consumer and innovator on the both end. Investors are making deals for the purpose of profiting and the end user tries to lead innovation by giving feedbacks and trying to increase their comfort level. Now this is sensed by innovator create the idea. So there does exist a portion of people called as investor who are the one you referring to as consumers but they are agin third parties here according to me. They never use the techs, they just profit themselves.

[davis196]

Tech giants are usually praised as holding complete responsibility for innovation, but you can' t have supply without demand.

People are programmed to compulsively desire the latest and greatest thing, which is why they are willing to justify working so hard in jobs most of them hate, or trade bitcoin lol.

If this scenario weren't happening, tech companies wouldn't have the budgets to create the incredible technology that we now have.

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?

This is so far away from the truth.Just read some Steve Jobs interveiws or quotations.He says that consumers just don't know what they want and it's pointless to execute consumer research surveys.
The big corporations can create demand using marketing and advertising,so your point ins't valid.

[LeGaulois]

If the technology can solve some problems without denying, it can also create new ones.
It increased productivity but decreased employment and household income. Adding the inflation, I don't see how great it is for the average Joe.
In the medical industry, there is no doubt that technology is a must and we should be happy with the progress done still now.



Watch this video talk https://www.ted.com/talks/jason_pontin_can_technology_solve_our_big_problems

What happened? So there is a parochial explanation in Silicon Valley, which admits that it has been funding less ambitious companies than it did in the years when it financed Intel, Microsoft, Apple and Genentech. Silicon Valley says the markets are to blame, in particular the incentives that venture capitalists offer to entrepreneurs. Silicon Valley says that venture investing shifted away from funding transformational ideas and towards funding incremental problems or even fake problems. But I don't think that explanation is good enough. It mostly explains what's wrong with Silicon Valley. Even when venture capitalists were at their most risk-happy, they preferred small investments, tiny investments that offered an exit within 10 years. V.C.s have always struggled to invest profitably in technologies such as energy whose capital requirements are huge and whose development is long and lengthy, and V.C.s have never, never funded the development of technologies meant to solve big problems that possess no immediate commercial value. No, the reasons we can't solve big problems are more complicated and more profound.

[Kemarit]

Companies just provide what their customers need.
They innovate and make researches to provide better services and better products.
It is not a cycle, it is a continuous work and each invention leads to another.

This might be the case of some. However, I do think that companies really are one step ahead of the game. That's why most tech giant has this so called "R&D" Department. Primary look for innovations,  and of course how they're going to satisfy their customers. And if they did discover new technology, then I'm sure that consumers are going to buy it because its the hottest trend. And it there's no demand, then they can easily created what we call "customer demand" and then the cycle continuous.

[ShadowBits]

Tech giants are usually praised as holding complete responsibility for innovation, but you can' t have supply without demand.

People are programmed to compulsively desire the latest and greatest thing, which is why they are willing to justify working so hard in jobs most of them hate, or trade bitcoin lol.

If this scenario weren't happening, tech companies wouldn't have the budgets to create the incredible technology that we now have.

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?

You might think it wrong. They are doing that using the consumers money and by getting any suggestion from other people.

[rickyNmorty]

Companies just provide what their customers need.
They innovate and make researches to provide better services and better products.
It is not a cycle, it is a continuous work and each invention leads to another.

They do innovation but the ideas for innovation came from the consumers in short. Therefore we can say that the companies only provide what the consume need in order to give satisfaction that is why they thend to do a lot of research and innovate things up.

[frowsiter]

The need creates for more need and it generates the idea. Yes, off course this is completely true that whenever new idea happens to get created in the market then  surely someone is always out there who makes it reality and this is where comes an innovation of something and with the time they make it into a technology or product which can be consumed by the consumers who always wanted to have it. The companies are just trying to set the businesses and make their customers happy and thats the goal will always see in any management learnings also.

[usorin]

Tech giants are usually praised as holding complete responsibility for innovation, but you can' t have supply without demand.

People are programmed to compulsively desire the latest and greatest thing, which is why they are willing to justify working so hard in jobs most of them hate, or trade bitcoin lol.

If this scenario weren't happening, tech companies wouldn't have the budgets to create the incredible technology that we now have.

Where do you think this seemingly endless cycle will lead? Will the technology ever solve so many problems and carry so much value that it would destroy the cycle?

By introducing new technologies or products in the market you actually make an virtual need for things.m For example if you have the latest phone model there will be a need for apps, electric charger (car and DC), memory cards, software for the device, and i dont need the accessory that comes with it. The problem is that the tech giants try to make our life too comfortable and at some point it will become a problem reflected in our health.

[Christopher_Hayes]

Not necessarily. Take the latest iPhone versions as an example. Did the people demand for AR capability or the Face ID or even the stupid memoji? I don't think so. The company provides technology that they think the consumers need, not necessarily because there's a demand for it.

[Cajor]

I guess it works both ways. If the consumers didn't need it then why would the companies innovate new technologies. And sometimes the innovators invent something we didn't even know we needed.

[Nnedaddy1]

I agree to the assertion the assertion that consumers are the ones majorly responsible for innovations.
Companies can only executive the innovations after they must have collected feed backs regarding their products via questionaires.