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Re:Who invented the lightbulb? by RcouF1uZ4gsC on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @07:33AM (#24480027)
Seems Edison invented the light bulb in much the same way Steve Jobs invented the modern smartphone.

Both took existing technology, added the missing pieces to make it a wide scale, must have product, created an ecosystem around it, and popularized it to the market, and reaped massive monetary rewards.

As far as the regular person is concerned, calling the person most responsible for the widespread adoption of a technology the “inventor” is probably more right than wrong.

Re:Who invented the lightbulb? by screye on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @09:20AM (#24480865)
That is entirely counter to the existing meaning of 'invention'.

The person to bring the first mature product to market is if anything, the antithesis of an inventor. Edison and Jobs were astute businessmen, and that is high praise enough. The CEO of Boeing did not invent flight, just because Boeing introduced the first modern airliners as people know it.

We do not need to add more superlatives to people who have already been deified in popular culture. Overloading terms like these, only serves dilutes their meaning, at the detriment of language at large.

Re:Who invented the lightbulb? by distances on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @08:50AM (#24480608)
> As far as the regular person is concerned, calling the person most responsible for the widespread adoption of a technology the “inventor” is probably more right than wrong.

I really don't see how it would be so. They would be the marketer. Case in point from your example: nobody considers Jobs to invent smartphone, touchscreen, or really any other technological piece. He's credited for the iPhone as a concept that for the first time combined the separate, already existing pieces plus marketing.