In early December I went to one of the few camera shops left in San Francisco, although I don’t live there I have bought cameras and lenses there many times (Discount Camera in Kearny – I love the place!). I was looking for a fix lens for my Olympus OMD-EM5, a 45mm and as usual, I ended up with a different model, a fantastic Leica lens. Throughout the buying process we were chatting about what had happened to camera shops. Can you guess how many are left? Only two downtown ! wow !
This is a familiar experience to all of us. Where is the photo-lab next door? And the record shop? How many hours did you spend browsing through vinyl’s first and CD’s later? They are all gone.
We normally say that Digital Photography killed Kodak, although in fact they invented it. But, what about the ecosystem? From photo-labs to photo-albums, a whole industry devoted to it has also gone.
Maybe the case of music is even better known and studied. It’s not only about the big record companies, but also the transformation of the business model and the whole ecosystem around it. Records and books used to take up a quite a lot of space at home. Now they are mostly decorative objects.
Many times when we think of disruptive technologies we think about the incumbents, the big companies that went from dominating the market to bankruptcy. But we don’t often remember the many jobs and business around the large companies that have been washed away by the tide of disruptive innovation. With them a myriad of jobs, companies and even competences got lost forever.
Will that be the case of 3D printing? Will 3D printing wipe out so many manufacturing jobs and will rock our economies?