"Disruptive" is popular because it implies the product or service can generate value on a large scale without playing catchup to existing market leaders.
If you're going to make an incrementally improvement, you have to first catch up to the pack, and in an established industry, this can be (or at least seem) cost-prohibitive and risky. "Disruptive" startups, in theory, do an end-run around the barriers to entry.
The article suggests that we replace disruptiveness with usefulness as a criteria for evaluating startups. I think we need both; disruptiveness ensures the startup has a fighting chance against the incumbents, and usefulness ensures the startup has a market.
Incidentally, several of the author's supporting arguments can be applied to the term "useful" as well. "Most technology we now consider 'useful' wasn't conceived that way", "the creators of useful technology often don't make the money".
That assumes that the product or service that you are providing needs to duplicate the efforts of established players in order to be useful. What if, instead, your product or service worked as an add-on to existing products? Like, for example, all those Twitter apps. They don't replace or compete with Twitter (currently) but they do provide additional functionality.
What if your product is genuinely new, but doesn't fundamentally change the way people live or do business?
True, complements to existing products can avoid typical barriers to entry for non-disruptive products, but they come with their own set of issues. Generally speaking, they are at high risk of being absorbed into the products they complement. Xobni -> outlook, facebook apps -> facebook, etc.
If you're going to make an incrementally improvement, you have to first catch up to the pack, and in an established industry, this can be (or at least seem) cost-prohibitive and risky. "Disruptive" startups, in theory, do an end-run around the barriers to entry.
The article suggests that we replace disruptiveness with usefulness as a criteria for evaluating startups. I think we need both; disruptiveness ensures the startup has a fighting chance against the incumbents, and usefulness ensures the startup has a market.
Incidentally, several of the author's supporting arguments can be applied to the term "useful" as well. "Most technology we now consider 'useful' wasn't conceived that way", "the creators of useful technology often don't make the money".