Seth Godin has a post on Problems & Constraints.
Problems are within one's power to solve. Constraints are not. Constraints belong to the environment.
Problems are "pain points", the solutions to which are addressed by business plans. Constraints have to be catered for in the business plan.
But all constraints are not a law of nature like gravity. The earth will never become flat (not at least in a non-cosmological time frame). The world can, and has, become flat.
Technology, regulatory systems, social mores, demography, modify, or remove, constraints. Those who can spot the coming change in constraints, and have the capability to quickly ready themselves for it, can use it to their advantage.
Peter Drucker said that whenever distribution channels change, opportunities arise. The internet, not withstanding the dot-com bubble, has changed the way goods and services are distrubuted. That is what enabled Apple to change its business model - removal of a constraint.
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