Fujifilm, Kodak’s later main competitor, was in the same boat and they just leaned into chemicals more.

Fujifilm survived and then went back to photography and now makes instant photography film again. They also make digital cameras that have a decent following.

Kodak could have probably done the same. They were probably right to to not invest in digital, but they were probably wrong to not invest in chemicals, their actual main strength.

It is true that Kodak lost an opportunity to be a 'first mover' in consumer digital cameras. Would it have made much difference in the long run? probably not.

When Amazon was still focused on selling books, Sears had a huge array of non-book stuff that could be bought and shipped to their store for free, or delivered anywhere at a fairly low cost. I bought all kinds of stuff that way, at a time when buying anything online still seemed kind of novel.

For a very long time the Sears Parts website was the foremost place to find appliance parts and documentation online.

Sears was even one of the founders of Prodigy, years before Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the Word Wide Web.

FFS, they had a rich history of taking orders and delivering products that started over a century ago.

So, one might ask: If the old trope of "they didn't understand teh Intarwebs, herp herp" is false, then what was it that brought ruin to Sears a little bit quicker than some of their fellow mall anchor peers?

And that answer is simple: Standard corporate raider tactics.

https://janweirlaw.medium.com/how-hedge-funds-profit-from-ba...

Car would have cost twice as much and that allows me to easily buy 10 years of fuel and running costs let alone accounting for depreciation. Charging standards and user experience needs to be better still.

Hoping in 5 years or so when my other car is ready to be replaced that the decision goes the other way, but we'll see. For now it's a no go.

I expect that Toyota will have products ready when the time is right.

There was a USAF thing for "we must control the high ground" in the 1960s and 1970s. The USAF had a space school during the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo years. The USAF wanted manned fighter aircraft that could reach low orbit, and proposed programs for decade after decade. It's a USAF thing. If you've had any involvement with the USAF, you know that there are pilots, and there's everybody else. The pilots are in charge. (Among the pilots, there are fighter pilots, and there's everybody else.)