> ""finding another way to connect with merchants" really isn't that important or useful in the scale of things"
No, it really is enormously important. See for example eBay, Amazon (with third party sellers), Yelp, and Craigslist, all of which have created enormous societal change by changing the way consumers find and engage merchants.
Imagine if we removed all of the above from existence today!
The problem is not that "connecting with merchants" is a relatively unimportant field (it is very important), but rather that most of the startups who claim to be in this space actually aren't really.
If I had a dollar for every time I've been introduced to a service that "connects consumers with merchants" and find out they're really just another daily deals site. Or worse, a daily deals site that doesn't even have their own deals, instead they just aggregate.
How much are they actually improving the "connecting with merchants" experience? Marginal at best, and their performance shows. They don't have a product, they have a feature nobody asked for, solves nobody's problem, and they're wondering why they're pivoting constantly.
And this is the problem I see with so many startups floating out there right now. Forget moral judgments on how "humanity-worthy" their fields are, I'll settle for startups that actually solve someone's problem and actually produce a compelling product.
If you find yourself saying "we're like X, but...", just stop.
If eBay, Amazon, Yelp, and Craigslist all disappeared today the only people who would be really affected are on the selling side of those services. That would have some ripple effects to be sure, but most consumers would, at most, be mildly inconvenienced.
When you divide the world into "selling side" and "buying side" in that way, you end up defining most of the world as passive consumers. Part of what people like us value about the Internet is the way it disintermediates people, (very) gradually leveling the playing field between institutional sellers and individuals.
To say that new ideas on connecting buyers and sellers are unimportant is to surrender commerce and thus much of modern life to Walmart. Good if you want to pay a lot less for mustard, ketchup, and low-quality lawnmowers. Bad if you ever thought of starting a business or selling something via Kickstarter.
I doubt the fall of Amazon would be as slight as you say it is, but for the others I agree that it might ruin your day/week, but it wouldn't end your life.
The loss of Craigslist and eBay would be deeply felt by normal people. But it sure would be good for huge companies that profit by locking up the retail channel and ensuring that most durable goods are seen as disposable.
No, it really is enormously important. See for example eBay, Amazon (with third party sellers), Yelp, and Craigslist, all of which have created enormous societal change by changing the way consumers find and engage merchants.
Imagine if we removed all of the above from existence today!
The problem is not that "connecting with merchants" is a relatively unimportant field (it is very important), but rather that most of the startups who claim to be in this space actually aren't really.
If I had a dollar for every time I've been introduced to a service that "connects consumers with merchants" and find out they're really just another daily deals site. Or worse, a daily deals site that doesn't even have their own deals, instead they just aggregate.
How much are they actually improving the "connecting with merchants" experience? Marginal at best, and their performance shows. They don't have a product, they have a feature nobody asked for, solves nobody's problem, and they're wondering why they're pivoting constantly.
And this is the problem I see with so many startups floating out there right now. Forget moral judgments on how "humanity-worthy" their fields are, I'll settle for startups that actually solve someone's problem and actually produce a compelling product.
If you find yourself saying "we're like X, but...", just stop.