Module 5: Red Queens and Increasing Returns

When I began my coursework with Walden University I had never taken an online class before. I had lived overseas for a number of years and was feeling geographically isolated from many things that Americans typically have available at their fingertips. I had no access to university classes or libraries. But I also missed out on places like Kinkos or Staples, Walmart, Target or Blockbuster video, for example. The internet began to play a crucial role in allowing me to be more participatory in my own country. Now, I can easily contribute to the U.S. economy through online shopping and continue my education in my own country while living on another continent....all thanks to advancements in technology which have truly enriched my life.

Recently, as I began to plan for my first trip back to the USA in two years, I began to feel the stress of figuring out how to overcome my internet dependency. The last time I was in the U.S., getting hooked up to WiFi was a hassle and costly. How could I participate in this class when I was physically away from my internet connection for three weeks?

I found myself in a car, driving up the California and Oregon coasts right in the middle of Module 4 when we needed to watch the science fiction videos. Once again, advancements in technology made it possible for me to be away from home and still be connected on the road. Hotels, coffee shops, McDonald's and even some airports allowed me to connect my iPad to free WiFi. However, my iPad and the internet would not be sufficient enough for me to watch a movie while driving in a car. Fortunately, my mom has a subscription with Netflix and she even has a DVD player in her van. Netflix offered the choice between renting a DVD or streaming video, so, the DVD was the best choice.


Using McLuhan's tetrad (Thornburg, 2008b), one can see in the figures below that the DVD is an emerged technology that is approaching the end of its lifespan. It enhanced the world of home entertainment, allowing the movie theater to be brought into the comfort of home. It obsoleted the bulky VHS videotapes and threatened the livelihood of movie theaters. The DVD rekindled the times when the king enjoyed the performers who entertained him in his own palace or when we went to the drive in and watched a movie from the comfort of our own car. Video-on-demand is the technology that reverses the trend and is beginning to replace the DVD.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
—Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass

Thornburg (2008c) states that a Red Queen represents the competition between technologies that results in the rapid development of competing technologies. The Microsoft versus Apple war is a classic example of two competing companies who try to run faster than one another to win the market share as they introduce their products. Now it's looking like Google is joining in on the war. The competition between DVDs and video-on-demand are not examples of Red Queens because DVDs actually are a matured technology while the video-on-demand technology is gradually emerging. Because of the significant investment that consumers have made with their home entertainment systems and DVD libraries, the DVDs will continue to be around for awhile until they eventually disappear and are replaced by video-on-demand or another upcoming technology.

Thornburg (2008c) describes increasing returns as a force in which competing innovations end up with one of the technologies surpassing the popularity of another, getting more attention and becoming the emerged technology, sometimes even when it is not the superior technology. The Betamax-VHS War is a good example. I remember our frustration when we purchased our first VCR. We went with the Sony Beta Max because it was said to be of higher quality and it was a smaller tape. However, we eventually saw that the Panasonic VHS tapes ended up having a much greater selection of movies and eventually our Beta Max system became obsolete. I don't believe that DVDs and video-on -demand fall under this category because DVDs have already emerged. I think that a service such as Netflix is competing with other online video services such as Hulu, iTunes10, Amazon video. The competition between services will probably become more fierce as the internet access becomes cheaper, easier to access, and more ubiquitous for all. The service that ends up emerging as the front runner will probably be the one that ends up forging a business merger or relationship with another entity offering more services at a lower price. The recent merger of Facebook and Skype illustrate this phenomenon as they will try to run faster than newly emerging Google+. It must be an exhausting race, but I am thankful for the advancements that continue to enrich my life.


References

Arthur, W. B. (1996). Increasing returns and the new world of business. Harvard Business Review, 74(4), 100−109. Retrieved from the Business Source Complete database.

Thornburg, D. D. (2008b). Emerging technologies and Mcluhan’s Laws of Media. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

Thornburg, D. (2008c). Red Queens, butterflies, and strange attractors: Imperfect lenses into emergent technologies. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.