One market research firm called IBISWorld came out with a report listing out the top 10 industries in the US which are on the verge of death. Interestingly among these 10 industries, at least 5 are affected by the digital revolution that is taking place. These 5 industries include wired telecommunication carriers, Newspaper publishing, video rental, video post-production services and photofinishing.
Newspaper publishing has been facing a lot of competition from internet with the same news available online for free. However, as far as India is concerned the industry is still flourishing thanks to the low access to internet, negligible cost of newspapers; in some cases it is actually profitable to buy newspapers as the amount of money that you can make from raddi is more than the cost of yearly subscription! India is way behind the period that US is experiencing at this stage in case of newspaper publishing at least. But as far as the rest of the industries are concerned the trends are not much different. We see how video rental has almost disappeared due to availability of downloadable media online and how ubiquitous the digital camera has become nowadays.
This news story reminds me of one theory that I studied during college: Theory of creative destruction by Joseph Schumpeter. The theory explained how status quo is disturbed by some innovation where you gradually witness the downfall of present technology/trend and the same getting replaced by the new one. The theory perfectly explains the reason behind the downfall of these industries in US but the amazing part is that all most of these have been victims of digital technology. Hats off to people like Joseph Schumpeter who had the foresight and the intelligence to publish something like this in 1942, which is applicable even today.
Newspaper publishing has been facing a lot of competition from internet with the same news available online for free. However, as far as India is concerned the industry is still flourishing thanks to the low access to internet, negligible cost of newspapers; in some cases it is actually profitable to buy newspapers as the amount of money that you can make from raddi is more than the cost of yearly subscription! India is way behind the period that US is experiencing at this stage in case of newspaper publishing at least. But as far as the rest of the industries are concerned the trends are not much different. We see how video rental has almost disappeared due to availability of downloadable media online and how ubiquitous the digital camera has become nowadays.
This news story reminds me of one theory that I studied during college: Theory of creative destruction by Joseph Schumpeter. The theory explained how status quo is disturbed by some innovation where you gradually witness the downfall of present technology/trend and the same getting replaced by the new one. The theory perfectly explains the reason behind the downfall of these industries in US but the amazing part is that all most of these have been victims of digital technology. Hats off to people like Joseph Schumpeter who had the foresight and the intelligence to publish something like this in 1942, which is applicable even today.
No comments:
Post a Comment