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The Standards Innovation Paradox

Standards, like RSS for podcasts, have enabled emerging technologies to spread far and wide in the information age by making it easy for them to plug into existing ecosystems. But the blessing of standardization eventually comes at a cost, and innovation suffers as a result. As an example, this is why the podcast format has remained mostly stagnant over its 20 year history.

But first…what exactly is a standard?

Benefits of standardization

Trade-offs

The family vacation

The Standards Innovation Paradox

A chart displaying the tradeoffs of The Standards Innovation Paradox — by Michael Mignano
The Standards Innovation Paradox

The Paradox in Podcasts

The Paradox in Messaging

A timeline showing the history of messaging, both with and without standards, by Michael Mignano
A brief history of Messaging, with and without standards

The Paradox in Newsletters

Breaking the Curse

To Standard or Not to Standard?

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Partner, Lightspeed. Co-Founder, Anchor. Angel investor to 50+ startups. Former head of talk audio at Spotify.

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Michael Mignano

Partner, Lightspeed. Co-Founder, Anchor. Angel investor to 50+ startups. Former head of talk audio at Spotify.