A short YouTube video (shorts) by Timothy Schucker arguing that businesses and institutions that fail to adapt to technological and market changes face obsolescence. Uses concrete examples—Blockbuster (vs. Netflix), the U.S. Post Office (vs. email), and Sears (vs. Amazon)—to illustrate how once-ubiquitous firms/institutions have declined or lost revenue as customers adopt new alternatives.
What happens to businesses and agents who fail to adapt? Well, we have a dinosaur graveyard right here. This is Blockbuster, Post Office and Sears. Blockbuster versus Netflix. For decades on decades, you couldn't go to a single shopping center in the United States without seeing a Blockbuster. Nowadays, you will never find a Blockbuster. I think there's one maybe in Oregon or something like that. And then now we have the post office versus email. For the majority of American history, the Post Office was a state staple of American society. It was actually a cabinet of the White House for a long period of time. Now they're losing billions and billions of dollars every single year. A lot of the post Office's revenue came from sending letters. And now you can send an email and instance, and it'll show up to, you know, your recipient's Ebill inbox. Sears versus Amazon. Again, Sears used to be one of the biggest corporations in the country. Now you're lucky to find a Sears. And if you do, it's more of a parking lot than a store, and that's because of Amazon.
