Any student of economics will tell you that “creative destruction” and “disruptive technologies” are essential elements of capitalism. An old business model dies and a new one takes its place, or a new technology comes along that fundamentally alters the direction of a field. Some companies survive (often after a near-death experience) while others don’t. A few examples:

Digital photography drove Polaroid out of the instant film business in 2008, and the company’s products are now entirely digital. Kodak recently announced it was ceasing production of its iconic Kodachrome film. Although the company still has an extensive line of film products, the handwriting is on the wall for silver chemistry. Xerox ran into problems in the 1970s when it was almost swamped by Japanese competition and was badly hurt by its failure in the emerging PC market. The company stopped the bleeding in the 1980s and 1990s and, starting in 2000 under the leadership of Anne Mulcahy, returned to profitability. IBM, long associated with mainframe computers (System 360, for example) made a success of the personal computer and saved itself. Digital Equipment Corp. did not. Newspapers are still trying to figure out how to cope with the change to digital media and the evaporation of their advertising revenues.