With just a few strategic word replacements, one could turn this into a pretty convincing rant about Wal-Mart.
There's nothing cool or innovative or interesting or high quality. But dammit, they're everywhere, can do a lot of things good enough to satisfy Joe Consumer, and have just kind of slowly sunk quietly into the background of their culture. They're ubiquitous, and that ubiquity allows them to cut corners and keep "costs" low because they operate at a scale no one else can really touch.
That reminds me of this post on how Craigslist's business is being eaten away, and why it's taking so long (because of the critical mass needed to compete against its network-effect benefit): http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-another-product-disrupted-and...
There's nothing cool or innovative or interesting or high quality. But dammit, they're everywhere, can do a lot of things good enough to satisfy Joe Consumer, and have just kind of slowly sunk quietly into the background of their culture. They're ubiquitous, and that ubiquity allows them to cut corners and keep "costs" low because they operate at a scale no one else can really touch.
Facebook is the Internet's Wal-Mart.