The Web compared to the car industry

Or: Where the web is going, according to me.

The way I see it there are a number of similarities between the web industry now and the car industry at the turn of last century. Like the car we are living though something which is revolutionising people’s lives and a lot of companies are trying to stake their patch of land.

There are companies with early success like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and eBay who have become household names like Ford, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Austin and Fiat. After these a second wave of websites sprung up with smaller successes, anything from MySpace, Flickr and Photobucket, Blogger and Wikipedia. In the same way many smaller car manufacturers started: Chrysler, Chevrolet, Dodge, Cadillac, Audi, Porsche, Alvis, and hundreds of others.Then over the next half a century the car market matured and developed, manufacturers defined their own niches: prestige, agricultural, military, sports, affordable. Some went bust, some were bought up and made into huge groups like General Motors and British Leyland. The technology improved and so did the reliance on the car. The market and supporting markets evolved.
There were brake manufacturers, coach builders, upholsterers, rubber and metal producers, lights and windows makers, even ball bearings, oil and fabric. The web has the same phenomenon occurring. You can now make a living from eBay or reselling through Amazon. Thousands of people are employed making servers, creating tooling software like PHP, ASP and Java and thousands more pay the rent from using those tools to create.

The difference with the web is that things are moving at a much greater pace. Changes in the automotive industry which took a decade can take a year on the Web. How many of you could go back to dial-up or a CRT monitor? I predict the following:

1. A large number of companies will go to the wall, it is just not possible for the market to sustain, for example, a dozen social networking sites just about books.
2. Consolidation – some companies will realise it is better to group with similar companies rather than go bust
3. There will be a lot more merging and integration – in the 1960s Lucas made lights for a great number of car manufacturers, Bosch still lead in producing ABS controllers. We will get more mash-ups between services as components become part of larger systems – like we want to use Flickr, Skype, Messenger, YouTube and VOIP in phuser and already use PayPal and WordPress.

I know this is a bit rambling but the main point I want to make is that although the web is a recent revolution and seems new, this type of thing has happened before and through astute comparisons it is possible to predict some of the future.

I remember a few years ago the US Mail was trying to get a law passed so everyone had to pay 1 cent for every email sent. Now with buying on web the delivery market is booming. I wish I had invested in those clever cardboard packages Amazon uses, or cardboard itself.

This is a huge area for discussion so send me some comments and let’s discuss!