Business

Experience has taught us that fashions and hype in tech and the workplace are something to be deeply suspicious of, and the subject of the day soon becomes the punchline of tomorrow. Remember 4IR, 3DTVs or, heaven help us, the metaverse? The evolutionary dead ends of technology are as old as humanity itself. Edison is remembered for lightbulbs, recording devices and AC electricity; he’s less renowned for inventing telephone voting and the necrophone for calling the recently deceased.

But sometimes, ideas come back and are better the second time around. Edison’s scheme to loan subscribers several LPs every month for a fixed monthly fee didn’t work in the early 20th century, but it was Netflix’ original DVD-by-mail business model.