Firstly, now what will we say instead of "oh, it's a kodak moment"?

And secondly:

"ook at the land line telephone system. What new technologies have they made to convince us to keep buying their product? None.

Why? Because they commonly have a monopoly over a region, with such tight oversight that new technologies cannot be incorporated. The video phone was to revolutionize our lives... killed due to fiefdoms and regulations."

Right, I want to tell you about the current situation in Australia and explain WHY sometimes innovation doesn't necessarily take off quickly...

The Australian telecommunications has been a monopoly since the start, with the main company, Telstra, owning all of the infrastructure...so now when other companies began to enter the market, Optus, AAPT, they would need to "lease" this infrastructure off Telstra. Some of these companies have started to infrastructure closer to the customer's property, but all of the copper lines running to the house are all still wholesaled. Most companies still just wholesale their telephone products off Telstra (so in essence, there is very little competition because the cost is the same across the board, and Telstra since they "own" the infrastructure can compete more easily)...

Now this is where things get interesting. Since copper pairs offer slow and unreliable service, a push to offer "fibre-to-the-home" (FTTH) but noone wanted to invest in the infrastructure except one, Telstra, who wanted to maintain its monopoly of the industry (and charge ridiculous prices too). The Australian government is now paying the billions of dollars to roll out this FTTH, and regulate the pricing so companies can still compete.

The moral of the story is, sometimes things are too expensive to implement, and noone wants to pay the capital. In your example, there are other more cost effective options other than "video phones" that the consumer choses (ie. Skype, MSN).

> Einstein wrote:

> Let me guess... it is to expensive due to Government regulations?

[self-edits, but it used to say "I think Einstien is a very smart person", I swear]...it is so expensive from the fact that there is such a LARGE country (would be similiar to the states, I know it is smaller, but not by much) with only a population of 25 million (ie. one of the lowest population densities in the world). Now the cost to physically dig up and lay fibre cables costs alot of money, and that cost only opens up a relatively SMALL market. Government regulations have NOTHING to do with it.

Let's see, condensed population... check

Easy access to Oceanic shipping... check

Regional access to fiber optics... check

Other nations in region pulled it off... check

The list seems complete, seems either labor costs or government, or both is interefering.

> Einstein wrote:

> Let's see, condensed population... check

> Easy access to Oceanic shipping... check

> Regional access to fiber optics... check

> Other nations in region pulled it off... check

> The list seems complete, seems either labor costs or government, or both is interefering.

1) I am quite sure it was stated that there was NOT a condensed population, it is condensed in pseudo-isolated areas... maybe Some areas can be counted as condensed (i.e. Main cities/ east coast) but not the country as a whole

2 & 3 I can give you

4) What other nations in the region? Unless you are looking at the FIFA region, i.e. Asia, but then Asian countries have a much different situation to Australia to move forward from, so they are not comparable.

Here in NZ we have a similar, but possibly worse situation. We had a government run telecommunications department, which kept the price down thanks to government handouts, but was also not expanding or innovating. A hack and slash government decided to sell it off, because "the private sector can run things better" which meant that the goverment department was now a monopolistic company. There was little regulation so there was nothing stopping others from entering the market. What happened was that the private american company gutted Telecom, sacked most of the workforce, sold off any assests they could and ran it into the ground, eeking as much cash as they could out of it, whilst also acting as a bully to any competitiors entering the market so that they retained their monopoly. No one laid new lines, or at least not on a national level. A few years later a new group brought the company and started to actually grow the area, however still in an anti-competitive model. It is not until recently when a more socialist government in power that Telecom has been forced to split into 3 companies, one of which is the owner of the physical lines which must provide the use of them to any company at the same price, i.e. no favourtism. Also the same government has forced the laying of Fibre Optic lines as opposed to the old copper lines.

So Capitalism didn't help further growth or competitiveness, prices increased, people lost jobs and it wasn't until a socialist government forced the issue and legislatived that competition and new services were implemented...

Why? Because FLint is speaking? I am sure that he is all how even if you disagree with the action, if the President says it is needed then it needs to be done and you should support it...

>The moral of the story is that if competition exists, big companies can fail. In this case competition was new technologies exploited by others. Old school camera film versus digital is not even a good comparison now.

I find this funny. why you might ask? Because Kodak originally came up with digital camera's but just couldn't capitalize on the market.. Moral of that story?.. Don't F yourself with your own technology.