Well, how much money did they make selling probiotic mouth wash?
I'm pretty sure if they had gone with curing all the world's cavities I would have heard of them. The brand recognition alone would be worth more than a probiotic mouth wash company.
Very unlikely there was a miracle cure that was left on the table because founders wanted to sell mouthwash.
It isn’t that simple. Say you believe that you have a miracle cure, but it will take a billion dollars to go through all the medical trials. And at the end, you could find out that it isn’t a miracle cure or could end up having too many side effects, then you are out a billion dollars. You just might not have the pockets deep enough to risk it. A probiotic mouthwash may have the potential for a fraction of the returns, but may only cost 5 million to bring to market.
If the cure is powerful enough to self replicate and resource starve the cavity causing bacteria, there is literally no business model. You could in theory swab a treated persons mouth and grow your own cultures.
If you can make money off open source, you can make money off curing every cavity in the world... But the company decided instead.... To sell mouthwash?
But you know how money is made off open source? Usually by support subscriptions (which, to be fair, is also how money was/is made on low-volume, high-value proprietary software, like e.g. SDKs for obscure and ancient industrial protocols). Beyond that, there is no general way to turn open source into money. Instead, open source is used by companies:
- To lower their costs - by outsourcing a chunk of development and testing to free volunteers; also by improving quality and reducing on-boarding costs of new hires (as you can select for those who already spent significant personal time learning your tech stack);
- For marketing purposes - mostly in terms of marketing to prospective employees, but for companies targeting technical audience, also marketing to customers;
- As a weapon against competition - the code you open-source is code your competitors can't sell; this is useful both in breaking into a legacy market, as well as restricting the kind of competition you'll get from those who started after you;
Where does the money come from then? Usually some combination of venture capital, rent-seeking and advertising. Open source destroyed the viability of the simple, honest model of providing value in exchange for payment. The alternative business models are much worse for end-users and society at large.
Assuming the bacteria story is true, your open source analogy is wrong. Anyone can copy the bacteria (similar to open source) but there's no maintenance needed once the bacteria is released to the public. Anyone in any country can offer to give you the bacteria. It's naive to think that anyone but a non-profit would release something like this.
Apples entire business model goes against that philosophy. Reoccurring revenue is where it’s at. Unless you actually want to make things better, in which case you’re shouldn’t be in business. (Which these guys blessedly aren’t!)
It’s not but it is also a) a selected example of many to illustrate a point with clarity, b) a widely emulated model, c) essentially what the company who pivoted pivoted towards. Rather than a one time solution, a reoccurring subscription model, so is salient and likely it or a similar model was considered in that switch.
I agree. Sadly most investors risking capital don’t. That’s why I love these guys and hope they get their funding. I imagine they fall outside some kickstarted T&C prohibiting bioengineering for use in humans, and likely Patreon too, but I would definitely kick over some bucks to help them if there were a channel.
