We built the network with a clear goal. To disrupt every business, one by one, and make industries more transparent and efficient. Even transactions like buying a mattress, that had hitherto felt like shady ripoffs, would be tossed and turned into feel-good experiences where buyers and sellers—freed from the clutches of commission-driven middlemen—could both rest easy, knowing they got a fair shake. In the new digital panacea, no bedfellow was too strange. We were going to live the dream. But after a series of wake-up calls, we’ve realized not everything we set out to build in the early days of the internet ended up looking exactly like it did when we drew it up on the whiteboard. And the new version of buying a mattress may end up being pretty much like the old version. From FastCo’s David Zax: The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare. “Casper was on its way to becoming a 750-million-dollar company. It was the hottest of the bed-in-a-box disruptors, with investments from celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Nas. And it was picking on some skinny blogger from Arizona?” (Sorry to wake you from your slumber, internet generation. You made your bed, now lie in it.)

+ Today, maybe the idea of disruption is just a pipedream. The original disrupters are in charge, and they’re not about to let you do to them what they did to others. The NYT’s Farhad Manjoo explains how the frightful five put start-ups in a lose-lose situation.”Where 10 or 20 years ago we looked to start-ups as a font of future wonders, today the energy and momentum have shifted almost completely to the big guys. In addition to the many platforms they own already, one or more of the Five are on their way to owning artificial intelligence, voice assistants, virtual and augmented reality, robotics, home automation, and every other cool and crazy thing that will rule tomorrow.” Wake me when it’s over…