Good article. The gist of the piece is that a lot of these direct-to-consumer businesses are trying to "disrupt" markets that the vast majority of people don't see as broken.
There do seem to be some different categories of products here. One is essentially trying to create new luxury brands for, e.g. toothbrushes, that either don't exist or are pretty old-line and non-millennial.
Others are trying to take business from entrenched dominant companies as in eye wear--which is what Warby-Parker did. However, as the article notes, it's not clear how many of those there are. Are high-end towels, etc. really an example of a market failure today? Probably not.
There do seem to be some different categories of products here. One is essentially trying to create new luxury brands for, e.g. toothbrushes, that either don't exist or are pretty old-line and non-millennial.
Others are trying to take business from entrenched dominant companies as in eye wear--which is what Warby-Parker did. However, as the article notes, it's not clear how many of those there are. Are high-end towels, etc. really an example of a market failure today? Probably not.