The Kronos effect is a term coined by

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

professor

Tim Wu Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu (born 1971 or 1972) is a Taiwanese-American legal scholar who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy at the United States from 2021 to 2023. He is also a professor of law at Colum ...

in his 2010 book '' The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires''. It describes how companies that establish early dominance in a period of disruptive innovation will do everything in their power to maintain their

first-mover advantage In marketing strategy, first-mover advantage (FMA) is the competitive advantage gained by the initial ("first-moving") significant occupant of a market segment. First-mover advantage enables a company or firm to establish strong brand recogniti ...

. The name derives from

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, in which the

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

Kronos ate his own children in order to preempt the prophecy that one would dethrone him. In ''The Master Switch'', Wu described the Kronos effect as critical to the history of

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

. In his book, he gives the example of radio pioneer and American business executive

David Sarnoff David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was a Russian and American businessman who played an important role in the American history of radio and television. He led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for most of his career in ...

. Sarnoff was originally what Wu described as "a radio idealist," but later in his career when heading the

Radio Corporation of America RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

(RCA), he came to view newly emergent FM technology as a threat to incumbent AM businesses including RCA's own

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

network. Sarnoff went on to pressure the

U.S. Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains ju ...

to restrict the growth of FM in a variety of ways, successfully suppressing its widespread adoption for more than thirty years, and proving, Wu wrote, that "the best antidote to the disruptive power of innovation is overregulation." The Kronos effect's role in the technological disruption cycle is to hurt innovation, efficiency, openness and decentralization. Other examples from Wu include: *

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the co ...

's failed attempt to suppress the

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

as a threat to the

telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...

* Co-opting of the nascent

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

industry by existing radio networks like the

National Broadcasting Company The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

(NBC)

References

{{reflist Innovation Product management Technological change

See also

References