An interesting article from last month’s issue of Wired magazine, “Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business.” It opens with this story about Gillette disposable razors:
At the age of 40, King Gillette was a frustrated inventor, a bitter anticapitalist, and a salesman of cork-lined bottle caps. It was 1895, and despite ideas, energy, and wealthy parents, he had little to show for his work.
One day, while he was shaving with a straight razor that was so worn it could no longer be sharpened, the idea came to him. What if the blade could be made of a thin metal strip? Rather than spending time maintaining the blades, men could simply discard them when they became dull.
A few years of metallurgy experimentation later, the disposable-blade safety razor was born.
But it didn’t take off immediately. In its first year, 1903, Gillette sold a total of 51 razors and 168 blades.
Posted by Howard Osa 
