Risk of Loss: A Series of Folly
"Cycling was so popular that in 1896 The New York Journal of Commerce estimated bicycling was costing theaters, restaurants and other businesses over 100 million dollars per year.”—Mental Floss How the Bicycle Emancipated Women
This line made me laugh. The Journal of Commerce‘s logic summarizes so beautifully the way dominant businesses would treat emerging entertainment and information technology in the next century and beyond. If it’s not loss of profits, it’s cultural collapse. In fact, this fear of loss and publicity about how new ideas are killing the old ways was a popular method of dealing with inventions such as the Gutenberg press back in the mid-1400s as well.
Since this entertains me so much, I am going to begin collecting quotes, statistics, and opinions from other industries that cried out to the public that the new toys were destroying the old and post them here in this Risk of Loss series.