[xitrium]

This did not hold up well, imo. Not sure how to count it but by some lists this is stuff like: Tencent, Alibaba, Amazon, Netflix, Priceline, Baidu, Salesforce.com, JD.com.

Others would include Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, GitHub, ...

There are only a few that would qualify that I can think of - Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.

If folks here have other examples or thoughts on why this does or doesn't hold true would love to hear them.

[cpmsmith]

I think the "Thing" in Next Big Thing as this article uses it is rarely a business, more often a technology. WhatsApp has never been considered a toy, but IM as a medium has—WhatsApp's genesis as a valuable business is itself that toy becoming a Big Thing. Netflix was never a toy; streaming video was a toy in 2005, Netflix turned it into a billion dollar business.

Edit: Technology, not product, and Netflix example

[nostrademons]

Could just be where we are in the technology cycle. Using Carlota Perez terminology, in 2010 we were in the midst of Synergy for web technology and Frenzy for mobile. Now both web & mobile are nearing Maturity and whatever the next big technology cycle is still in Irruption.

If you looked at PCs from 1993-2003 you would've had a similar view. PCs from 1983-1993 underwent dramatic progress: you went from 16-color TV outputs, 64K of RAM, 8-bit CPUs, floppies, command-line interfaces, and BASIC to 24-bit color, 3D computer graphics, GUIs, 16MB of RAM, 200+ MB hard disks, 32-bit CPUs, IDEs, desktop publishing, CD-ROMs, modems and Internet access, even speech recognition and text-to-speech on some Apple machines. From 1993-2003, you had incremental progress: Microsoft won, Windows 3.1 became Win95 and then eventually Win2k, CPUs got faster, RAM and disks expanded, broadband happened, but what we used the computer for didn't change much, except for the advent of the Internet. The Internet itself was supposed to revolutionize computing, but the dot-com bust happened in 2001 and in 2003 it was still pretty much a toy. And other much-hyped developments like WebTV, VR, voice recognition, and AI had fallen flat.

There are plenty of toys that are still in Irruption now. Cryptocurrency was supposed to change the world; the bubble burst in 2018, but maybe we'll see it come back in 2020 with DeFi the way the Internet did in 2005 with social media. Drones are literal toys right now. So is VR & AR. There's been a lot of progress in computing for kids with things like Scratch, RoBlox, or Minecraft.

[alasdair_]

I can see curren-gen VR and AR games leading to next-gen "real AR" glasses with an impact on far more than just gaming.

[vardump]

Most VR/AR development activity I've seen seems to be about (industrial) training.

[dahdum]

I see AR as having an enormous future impact, games only a small fraction of that. We jumped at the chance to escape reality into our phones, but AR is far more seductive. VR limits your mobility, but AR can be used every waking hour.

I see it starting with small tweaks to reality...a dingy concrete sidewalk replaced with a golden brick road. Empty walls in an apartment awash with art, scenic views, and/or entertainment.

[ronilan]

It didn’t hold up because, while it does sound catchy and nice, the assertion is wrong.

And it’s wrong not because of the “toy” part but because of the “next big thing” part.

There is absolutely no guarantee of a ”next”, a ”big” or “a thing“ coming, regardless of origin.

A different future is not inevitable, at best it’s a toss up. This last decade went for inertia. Next one? Who knows...

[kgraves]

Evan Speigel admittedly said this about Snapchat [0] (2014):

"When we first started working on Snapchat in 2011, it was just a toy. In many ways it still is – but to quote [Charles] Eames, 'Toys are not really as innocent as they look. Toys and games are preludes to serious ideas.' "

[0] https://www.snap.com/en-GB/news/post/2014-axs-partner-summit...

[DoreenMichele]

Cars started out as ridiculous luxury toys for rich people.

Sometimes you gotta wait a few decades to see where things go.

[pbhjpbhj]

That doesn't appear to be true, Duryea and Benz vehicles (ICE burning petrol/gasoline in the late 1800s) appear to have replaced bicycles and horse-drawn carriages and acted as functional means of transportation, rather than "toys".

Earlier electric and hydrogen powered vehicles I've seen appear similarly to have been created as functional replacements for horse-drawn vehicles.

Maybe you could expand your comment to demonstrate your point?

[l_t]

I think the "looking like a toy" terminology is confusing the discussion.

From the article:

> Disruptive technologies are dismissed as toys because when they are first launched they “undershoot” user needs.

So instead of asking if it "looks like a toy", what if we asked, which of those products started out by "undershooting" user's needs?

In that lens, I think you could make arguments for a few of those having started by "undershooting." The most obvious example to me is Amazon starting out as an online bookstore.

edit: I just want to add that from my vantage point this might be a true idea, but it gives very little actionable information. Perhaps Christensen's books give better insight on why this is something we should care about.

[charlesju]

Scooters, Bitcoin, Tinder, Meditation Apps. Then literal toys like Fortnite, Pokemon Go.

[hndamien]

Would you call Bitcoin a "toy"? If so, it really is just saying that it is likely to be something you are initially dismissive of.

[mch82]

World of Warcraft Gold & similar in-game currencies are toys.

Bitcoin is not a toy, but follows in the footsteps of those toys (in addition to traditional currencies).

[airocker]

Uber/Lyft/AirBnb were considered toys when they began. It may be that nowadays the transition from toy to big company is faster.

[playpause]

I don't remember anyone saying Uber/Lyft/Airbnb were toys when they began. Some might have thought them unlikely to succeed, but that's not the same thing as being a toy.