Disruptive Technologies

A disruptive innovation is something that disrupts an existing market. An example of a disruptive technology is digital photography. Prior to digital photography, chemical photography ruled the market. It was necessary for people to buy the rolls of film and put them in their camera. Each roll of film had a certain limit on the number of pictures that could be taken. After the roll had been exhausted, the person had to take it to a special shop to get the pictures developed. This process usually took several days and was quite a hassle. With the advent of digital photography, limits on the number of pictures taken still exist (based on the size of the memory card), but images can be deleted from the memory card if it gets full. Also, there's no longer a need to take the photos to a specialty shop for development; people simply plug their camera in to their computer and upload the photos directly to their hard-drive. The market shifted from chemical to digital in what seemed like no time at all, and now, chemical photography is much a thing of the past.