ToiletPaperInnovation

Quora Answer : Are there any products or markets/industries where there is little to zero innovation taking place?

Dec 18, 2013

I'm not convinced toilet paper isn't evolving :

• the use of recycled paper or paper from sustainable forests to address eco-concerns
  - luxury brands with extra padding / quilting
  - toilet paper imbued with various kinds of scents
  - novelty toilet paper with pictures printed on it
  - or ordinary toilet paper with textured patterns

And then there's Australian company sells $1.3M 22-karat gold toilet paper

There's plenty more scope. Perhaps toilet paper with the right agents added can be used for medical diagnostics (eg. to change colour in the presence of certain signs of disease)

At the end of the day, innovation is limited by human imagination. And there's no reason to think we've reached the end of that. Of course, there are some categories where the basic design patterns are pretty good and stable, so most innovation tends to be short-lived fads rather than something that is permanently adopted. But I don't think you can ever rule out the possibility that the NEXT innovation might be fundamental. In any category.