swani:

In the first half of the 20th century, the manufacture, transportation and distribution of ice blocks was one of the largest industries in the country. It employed hundreds of thousands of people, and several large corporations got very rich off of supplying a vital service.

But after WWII, everybody bought refrigerators. By the early 50s, pretty much every American home could make their own cold for pennies a day, and didn’t need to pay significantly more for a service that was obsolete and superfluous. The ice barons lost their collective asses and hundreds of thousands of ice farmers and delivery men lost their jobs.

I’m sure they tried like hell to stop people from making cold at home, but an outdated business model is an outdated business model. Luckily, the government wasn’t quite as firmly in the pocket of lobbyists as they are now, otherwise refrigerators might have been outlawed as a job-killing communist conspiracy. Sometimes old business have to die for newer, better businesses to take over.

Media distribution is the ice delivery service of the 21st century. They’re dinosaurs. It sucks to be the dinosaur when the asteroid comes to town, but if the dinosaurs don’t die, the mammals never get their shot.

Well put, sir. 

Only part I disagree with is that mammals would not overcome the dinosaurs. We are better than our reptilian ancestors, hands down. 

I’ll now go out to catch a lizard and eat it as proof.

(Source: reddit.com)