9.1 Purifying Selection in The Evolution of Industries

Marcos Antonio de Lima Filho, PhD.

Academics and practitioners are very enthusiastic about innovation theories covering the generation of new products and services. Most of these theories and frameworks (disruptive innovations, blue ocean strategies, design thinking, business model innovation, etc.) encourage new venture formation, and many believe that the more radical and disruptive, the better. Without a doubt, these concerns are of the utmost importance to encourage creative thinking.

The issue is that economic and technological cycles are not driven solely by product launches and ever-increasing market growth and adoption rates. There is what Schumpeter termed “creative destruction”, a process which is “incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one” (Schumpeter, 1942/2010). The evolution of designs is a continuous cycle of invention, replication, and discard: “Invention breaks stale routine, replication makes the invention widely available, and discard assures that there will be room for future invented things” (Basalla, 1988).

As active participants in the market selection process, customers continuously shape the evolutionary path of technologies and industries. Through their choices and decisions, consumers exert purifying selection as they discontinue, replace, or reject design features that no longer serve their needs or that fail to meet their expectations. In doing so, they exert a form of evolutionary pressure, forcing products and services to adapt, innovate, or become extinct, much akin to natural selection in the biological world.

Despite a wealth of evidence surrounding technological discontinuance and rejection, current innovation literature reveals a significant gap in our understanding of technological obsolescence and rejection, especially when juxtaposed with our interest in technological creation and disruptive innovation. This prevalent pro-innovation bias in academia results in considerable oversight, hindering our comprehension of how innovation diffuses within societies (Rogers, 2003). It overlooks the importance of creative destruction in the innovation life cycle, a vital process through which markets are rejuvenated and refined by weeding out ill-adapted inventions or technologically obsolete innovations.

Reflecting upon the wise insight of evolutionary biologists Gould and Eldredge (1993): “no bias can be more constricting than invisibility”, we are reminded of a long-running bias in innovation research. This insight exposes our prevailing pro-disruption bias, a stance that made the aspects of technological obsolescence and rejection virtually “invisible” in academic discourse.

In this chapter, I approach this problem by highlighting often overlooked patterns of replacement, discontinuance, and rejection of technologies. These patterns find a parallel in evolutionary biology through the concept of purifying selection, which signifies the elimination of unfit traits in species. Based on this analogy, I introduce the concept of “purifying innovation” as a process by which a designed artefact (whether a product, system, or service) evolves through the replacement, discontinuance, or rejection of some of its components, technological standards, or features.

Purifying innovations can be subcategorised into three primary types: those resulting from technological replacement (discussed in Section 9.4), feature discontinuation (Section 9.5), and technological rejection (Section 9.6). For illustration:

Technological Replacement: This occurs when a new technology supersedes an existing one, leading to the elimination of the older technology from product designs. Historic examples include the replacement of piston engines with jet engines, which parallels the current replacement of internal combustion engines with electric motors. Another instance is the shift from film to digital cameras.

Feature Discontinuation: This type of purifying innovation results from the removal of certain features that were once considered valuable but are no longer deemed necessary or desirable. Reasons for discontinuation may include changing consumer preferences or the emergence of alternative solutions. Examples include the removal of CD/DVD drives from laptops and the elimination of headphone jacks from smartphones.

Technological Rejection: In some cases, a technology or feature is removed from products because it failed to gain widespread adoption or was met with negative user feedback. These instances of purifying innovation demonstrate the importance of understanding consumer needs and preferences, as well as the risks associated with introducing new technologies. Cases in point include the removal of 3D functionality from TVs and smartphones due to lackluster consumer interest, and the market failure of supersonic commercial transport due to factors like high operational costs and limited market appeal.

The cases discussed in this chapter attest that value creation is not restricted to novel creations, but also extends to the cycles of replacement, discontinuance, and rejection. Despite leading to capital destruction, these purifying shifts can prevent resource wastage and yield significant economic value (Section 9.7). This is evident in the removal of CD/DVD drives from laptops and the discontinuation of the headphone jack in smartphones, which led to considerable cost savings and new market creation (Section 9.1). Therefore, given its potential to generate value, the purifying selection of technologies warrants recognition as a specific pattern of innovation.