Building a computer or a phone company today is basically impossible. We're heading towards a state of extreme monopolies. There is no way to vertically integrate like Apple without having access to crazy amount of resources and time.
If you're building a new hardware company today, you wouldn't want to start out vertically integrated. You'd start by whitelabeling from an ODM, and as you gain experience and hopefully sales, figure out what parts you can design and get manufactured yourself. You can't differentiate much when you're selling the same ODM kit as everyone else, but maybe support or updates or meaningful changelogs or a splash or color or less spyware or ?
This is the crux though:
Hyperoptimization is contagion. It increases the barrier to entry for everyone. You could build a reasonable handset without having 90% of your decisions made for you by the elephants in the room.
We've allowed too much consolidation. We need to break things up.
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If you're building a new hardware company today, you wouldn't want to start out vertically integrated. You'd start by whitelabeling from an ODM, and as you gain experience and hopefully sales, figure out what parts you can design and get manufactured yourself. You can't differentiate much when you're selling the same ODM kit as everyone else, but maybe support or updates or meaningful changelogs or a splash or color or less spyware or ?
This is the crux though: Hyperoptimization is contagion. It increases the barrier to entry for everyone. You could build a reasonable handset without having 90% of your decisions made for you by the elephants in the room.
We've allowed too much consolidation. We need to break things up.