Sunday, September 08, 2024

there were 5500 car companies in the USA before 1942. There were only 60 automakers in 2021, owned by 14 massive global companies

There were only 60 automakers in 2021, owned by 14 massive global companies

I think this indicates how once anyone could make anything, with zero lawyers and govt regulations, and now, the only way to get anything done is to have massive millions of dollars of investment, destroy a couple dozen units in crash tests. 

3 comments:

  1. That is the natural cycle of business in capitalist economies. When a new industry appears there are lots of competitors and lots of innovation. Over time the market sorts it self out as the better, more efficient, more successful companies are identified. Eventually that leads to consolidation and only a few competitors are left in the market. It is the same story in Europe and Japan. Most European brands fall under VW or Stelantis.
    You can see the same thing happening if you look at aircraft manufacturers from the 1920-30s to today. Or cellphone operating systems in the 2000's. We used to have cellphones running on Symbian, Firefox, Windows mobile, Mozilla, Ubuntu, iOS, Android and more. Today we have only Android and iOS.

    We are currently living through the beginning of the cycle with AI engines. Today there are 100s of different AI companies (Chat GPT, Gemini, Copilot, Remini, etc, etc, etc). Eventually a couple will become the more successful ones and will drive the others out of business/purchase them and we will be left with a couple that we all use.

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    Replies
    1. very good observation and historical context

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  2. Sad truth! Good that you point this out to us.

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