What can we learn from informal repair cultures? Aside from the benefits, what are the risks for consumers and for companies whose products are repaired, refurbished and resold? Given the benefit to (bottom of the pyramid) consumers are there elements of the repair ecosystem that can be exported to other cultures? Can the same skills be applied to other parts of the value chain? And, given the range of resources and skills available what would it take to turn cultures of repair into cultures of innovation?
Speaking in the context of the dotcom meltdown, Jeff Bezos says that while it’s tempting to see the Internet using the California Gold Rush analogy, it’s more useful to apply the electricity analogy.
Both electricity and internet are thin horizontal enabling layers that go across multiple industries. The web applications we have seen so far are, in fact, similar to the first wave of electric appliances. For instance, just like web applications use the physical network infrastructure laid out for long distance telecommunications, the first wave of electrical appliances used the electric network laid out for the light bulb. So, it’s only to be expected that web applications, like the first electrical appliances, will include both life changing innovations and amusing failures.
I believe that Jeff Bezos’ conclusion in 2003 — “there’s more innovation ahead of us than behind us” — is equally valid in 2008, and that’s true for both the protocol/ platform and the application/ user interface layers. Which is a good thing, especially for those of us who missed both the dotcom and the web 2.0 booms.
