Competition makes us all better. It causes us to be creative, it causes us to think about our customers, it forces us to be different. The most profitable company in the world (Apple) is providing extremely high value products in some of the most cut throat industries out there – cell phones, laptops and software. You don’t see them complaining about competition.
But then there are industries like the legacy broadband players. Turns out Time Warner Cable can magically make your service 6x faster at no additional cost the moment real competition arrives in a market. This is the definition of seeking a cash cow with no work. The worst part for this legacy industry is that as competition shows up they are suddenly going to have to dramatically improve their processes and infrastructure in one go. If they had continued to adapt and survive it would be less costly, less painful and their customers wouldn’t be as susceptible to being stolen away.
Competition always eventually shows up. I’d rather live and thrive in the middle of it than get fat, happy and suddenly out of a job after I’ve forgotten how to do great work for my customers.