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A comment on How the Internet affected kiteboarding. Parent comment

Re:How the Internet affected kiteboarding by tmp3098512 on Wednesday September 11, 2013 @01:07PM (#6368397)
Yet the most widespread kite design today is patented and was developed secretly by two men.

Nevertheless, I agree with the author that in the early days collaboration (and competition) between innovative kitesurfers drove the sport forward. Even today the innovation does not come from the main manufacturers who do nothing but repackaging last year's models.

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Re:How the Internet affected kiteboarding by ZeroGravitas on Thursday September 12, 2013 @07:47AM (#6373448)
In the book Hippel talks about two different kinds of innovation, one which "lead users" can come up with because they're at the cutting edge of their field and wanting to go further, and another that manufacturers can come up with because they've got deep knowledge about manufacturing. If "repackaging" involves making it cheaper to produce then that's a good thing, even if it's not the cool kind of innovation that people like to celebrate.
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