While I also agree the saying “earlier bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese” is quite often very worthy of remembering I think the examples might not be the best and it probably needs how the markets and industries evolved. The question is probably more along the lines of innovation that survived and grew and if the first mover basically lost everything or made a good return and moved on letting others pay up for their work.
I think a number of your examples are perhaps special cases, or at least cases with some unique aspect. Most seem to include very high fixed costs and exhibit rather large network externality effects. In such settings it’s not too surprising to see long-run consolidation into a few key organizations (names) with all the precursors names dropped. But doesn’t mean those earlier builders lost out (and potentially enjoyed greater rates of return on investment).
An example here might be UUNet. Forget search or social networking if UUNet (or someone like it) did not commercialize the technology of science backbone between the universities. They have not been around for over 30 years but was a very successful first (or at least very early, prior to “proven” space) mover.
While I also agree the saying “earlier bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese” is quite often very worthy of remembering I think the examples might not be the best and it probably needs how the markets and industries evolved. The question is probably more along the lines of innovation that survived and grew and if the first mover basically lost everything or made a good return and moved on letting others pay up for their work.
I think a number of your examples are perhaps special cases, or at least cases with some unique aspect. Most seem to include very high fixed costs and exhibit rather large network externality effects. In such settings it’s not too surprising to see long-run consolidation into a few key organizations (names) with all the precursors names dropped. But doesn’t mean those earlier builders lost out (and potentially enjoyed greater rates of return on investment).
An example here might be UUNet. Forget search or social networking if UUNet (or someone like it) did not commercialize the technology of science backbone between the universities. They have not been around for over 30 years but was a very successful first (or at least very early, prior to “proven” space) mover.