<story><title>The Creative Monopoly</title><url>http://nytimes.com/2012/04/24/opinion/brooks-the-creative-monopoly.html?_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>knowtheory</author><text>What an &lt;i&gt;awful&lt;/i&gt; way to phrase a simple concept.&lt;p&gt;Rather than compete in someone else&apos;s market, create your own market.  Manufacture, or identify a need that has not been met, and, having been first mover, use that to build an insurmountable lead over any possible competitors.&lt;p&gt;Whether it&apos;s mint toothpaste, or portable digital music players, this has been done for generations.&lt;p&gt;&quot;Creative Monopoly&quot; is a bizarre term for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jordanb</author><text>Yeah, and economists have had a better word for it since 1933: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_differentiation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_differentiation&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Creative Monopoly</title><url>http://nytimes.com/2012/04/24/opinion/brooks-the-creative-monopoly.html?_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>knowtheory</author><text>What an &lt;i&gt;awful&lt;/i&gt; way to phrase a simple concept.&lt;p&gt;Rather than compete in someone else&apos;s market, create your own market.  Manufacture, or identify a need that has not been met, and, having been first mover, use that to build an insurmountable lead over any possible competitors.&lt;p&gt;Whether it&apos;s mint toothpaste, or portable digital music players, this has been done for generations.&lt;p&gt;&quot;Creative Monopoly&quot; is a bizarre term for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cageface</author><text>His point is a little broader because he also questions the shared assumptions that underly our educational systems.&lt;p&gt;I often hear that American and European schools are produce better students than Asian schools because they place less emphasis on rote learning and more on independent thinking but my impression is that&apos;s much less true now than it might have been 20 years ago.</text></comment>