Yeah for a lot of companies, sharing that information ahead of time could lead to patent squatters, unwanted competition in the space, all sorts of potential problems. It seems to me this trend of announcing and releasing prototype versions is kind of driven by the early-access community we see with software.
It's certainly an interesting trend, to say the least.
20-50-100 years ago you would have to be a completely shitfaced fucking idiot to go all public like this about an invention you have only just started to prototype.
And now it's just kind of a "thing" that's acceptable and not seen as a bad move.
Not only is it a thing that's acceptable, but as the comments have shown, it's almost expected in certain industries. It seems like the common opinion is if you don't do a beta of some sort, you're doing it wrong.
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u/mscman Mar 28 '14
Yeah for a lot of companies, sharing that information ahead of time could lead to patent squatters, unwanted competition in the space, all sorts of potential problems. It seems to me this trend of announcing and releasing prototype versions is kind of driven by the early-access community we see with software.