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Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by untog on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @01:18PM (#5675487)
This is what makes stuff like closing AOL Music even sadder- AOL is in a really weird position where they're making a ton of money where they shouldn't be- they are in a prime position to do some really interesting things on the net. But they don't.
Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by ryguytilidie on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @02:57PM (#5676122)
It's actually pretty much the main problem with capitalism. Innovation often drives prices down, and prices going down means less profit, so at a point, there is an absolute disincentive to innovate. Obviously in theory people would leave the inferior product, but that is clearly not the case in situations like this.
Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by kcorbitt on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @03:55PM (#5676461)
Actually, the more free a market is the less of a problem this becomes. For every Blockbuster Inc. out there perfectly happy with the way things are now, the free market tends to produce three or four Nexflixes who are more than happy to cut margins, innovate and broaden the market.

Of course, with monopolies you get the kind of perverse incentives you're describing. Phone technology and prices stagnated for a decade or two when Bell had a de facto monopoly. I would still argue that a free market tends to produce fewer monopolies than any other practical regulatory scheme, but that's a topic for another post.

Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by dx4100 on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @03:07PM (#5676183)
It happens in any type of economic system, except in capitalism, it happens much slower. I'd prefer eventual stagnation with the possibility of reviving innovation to a forced stagnation by a particular economic system.
Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by shaddyz on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @06:07PM (#5677267)
I wouldn't consider capitalism an economic system. It is more of a description of the behavior of organisms. Free markets naturally produce monopolies just like humans have monopolized Earth. Once the monopoly is achieved, the motivation to innovate diminishes along with the entity's competitiveness. Eventually, someone will challenge the monopoly-holding alpha entity and the cycle continues. It happens in economies, societies, ecosystems, and any domain where evolution takes place.
Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by aneth4 on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @06:54PM (#5677584)
This doesn't make sense. Innovation CAN drive prices down lowering costs. Lower prices lead to increased sales and market share. When prices reach near zero there is certainly a disincentive to innovate, and that is not a "problem". The fact that some consumers don't take advantage if innovation - broadband Internet for the same price as their old dial up - is the problem here. This has nothing to do with any fundamental flaw in capitalism.
Re:AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America by nwzpaperman on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @11:58PM (#5678730)
AOL has bet the future on Patch.com or at least that's how it looks with Armstrong riding nine figure losses and hanging on to the shiny sheriff's badge over there for another platform pivot!

You should have an asterix next to "making a ton of money."

*Past performance is not indicative of future results!