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That's not the definition of "disrupt" used by Christensen (or by Yglesias in this article). Yglesias is arguing that we should return to the useful definition

That's not the definition of "disrupt" used by Christensen (or by Yglesias in this article). Yglesias is arguing that we should return to the useful definition of disrupt as developing a product that is worse in most respects compared to existing products, except on price (and possibly size/portability). The quality you're talking about is something like "revolutionary," not disruptive.

DigitalJack 13y ago
I really wouldn't have thought that "disrupt" meant cheap and shitty.
- raganwald 13y ago
  Oh but it does. McDonalds once meant cheap and shitty. So did Volkswagon. Japanese automobiles too. PCs were absolutely cheap and shitty. In the early 1980s, there were some powerful financial modelling applications for minicomputers. VisiCalc was cheap and shitty in comparison.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - dasil003 13y ago
    I'll give you that that's definitely how the incumbents describe the disruptive competition in stage 2 of the standard 5 stages of disruption or whatever.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Uh...no. There's lots of cheap and shitty out there, and most of it doesn't survive because that's all it is. McDonalds, Volkswagens, PCs, VisiCalc, etc. all dominated because their "disruptiveness" overwhelmed their "cheap and shitty" - with the latter being applicable because, since nobody had done it before, they didn't really know how to do it any better or didn't have the resources to. Customers took one look at the new product, went "OMG I can't live without it", and bought into it bigtime because the benefits far outweighed the problems. Yeah, VisiCalc was nothing compared to some powerful financial modeling applications for minicomputers - IF you HAD a minicomputer which few could afford and required dedicated personnel for support, as opposed to cheap PCs and cheap software which instantly made spreadsheet software nearly as ubiquitous as spreadsheet paper.
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    The key thing is that none of those were really "cheap and shitty." They were "cheap and good enough," which is different. Good Enough is a very powerful thing. If you can beat the competition on price while still delivering a Good Enough product, you'll be buried in money.
- pchristensen 13y ago
  It means too low quality for current customers, but good enough for non-consumers to become customers. PCs were not good enough for minicomputer users, but it was a lot better than pencil and paper and slide-rules. They cost thousands of dollars, but minicomputers were tens of thousands of dollars.
krschultz 13y ago
That's not actually what Christensen was saying. A disruptive product meets the needs of a lower price point customer. For these users, the disruptive product is sufficient. The established company has overshot what the mass market needs in an effort to get more value out of their best customers. Typically then the disruptive product is much better in a different metric. In his hard drive example, as each physical size had a much higher capacity than was necessary for the average user, metrics such as speed or physical size became more important. In his excavator example, once every shovel could move enough dirt, flexibility, maintainability, and mobility became more important. Cheaper is often a part of the whole thing, but just making a cheaper product won't suffice. You generally have to compete on a metric orthogonal to the metric everything is judged based on now. CPUs are going through it, the average CPU was more powerful than what "normal" people needed about 5 years ago, so now we're in a race along the power consumption/thermal output metric rather than raw computing power.

DigitalJack 13y ago

I really wouldn't have thought that "disrupt" meant cheap and shitty.

raganwald 13y ago
Oh but it does. McDonalds once meant cheap and shitty. So did Volkswagon. Japanese automobiles too. PCs were absolutely cheap and shitty. In the early 1980s, there were some powerful financial modelling applications for minicomputers. VisiCalc was cheap and shitty in comparison.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dasil003 13y ago
  I'll give you that that's definitely how the incumbents describe the disruptive competition in stage 2 of the standard 5 stages of disruption or whatever.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Uh...no. There's lots of cheap and shitty out there, and most of it doesn't survive because that's all it is. McDonalds, Volkswagens, PCs, VisiCalc, etc. all dominated because their "disruptiveness" overwhelmed their "cheap and shitty" - with the latter being applicable because, since nobody had done it before, they didn't really know how to do it any better or didn't have the resources to. Customers took one look at the new product, went "OMG I can't live without it", and bought into it bigtime because the benefits far outweighed the problems. Yeah, VisiCalc was nothing compared to some powerful financial modeling applications for minicomputers - IF you HAD a minicomputer which few could afford and required dedicated personnel for support, as opposed to cheap PCs and cheap software which instantly made spreadsheet software nearly as ubiquitous as spreadsheet paper.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  The key thing is that none of those were really "cheap and shitty." They were "cheap and good enough," which is different. Good Enough is a very powerful thing. If you can beat the competition on price while still delivering a Good Enough product, you'll be buried in money.
pchristensen 13y ago
It means too low quality for current customers, but good enough for non-consumers to become customers. PCs were not good enough for minicomputer users, but it was a lot better than pencil and paper and slide-rules. They cost thousands of dollars, but minicomputers were tens of thousands of dollars.

krschultz 13y ago

That's not actually what Christensen was saying. A disruptive product meets the needs of a lower price point customer. For these users, the disruptive product is sufficient. The established company has overshot what the mass market needs in an effort to get more value out of their best customers. Typically then the disruptive product is much better in a different metric. In his hard drive example, as each physical size had a much higher capacity than was necessary for the average user, metrics such as speed or physical size became more important. In his excavator example, once every shovel could move enough dirt, flexibility, maintainability, and mobility became more important. Cheaper is often a part of the whole thing, but just making a cheaper product won't suffice. You generally have to compete on a metric orthogonal to the metric everything is judged based on now. CPUs are going through it, the average CPU was more powerful than what "normal" people needed about 5 years ago, so now we're in a race along the power consumption/thermal output metric rather than raw computing power.