the.com/byproduct
The thing you weren't trying to make, which sometimes outlives the thing you were.
means A secondary result produced while making or doing something else, incidental to the main output.
from Straightforward compound from 'by-' (meaning secondary, off to the side, as in 'bystander' or 'byway') plus 'product.' It emerged with industrial-age manufacturing language, when factories and chemical processes started generating useful leftovers alongside their main output — sawdust from lumber mills, whey from cheesemaking — and English needed a plain word for 'the other thing that came out.'
- origin story
- Rubber was a tar-pit byproduct before it was useful
- business model
- Whey was dairy waste until it became protein powder
- etymology
- Coined to sound minor, often becomes the main event
- side note
- Viagra was a failed heart-drug byproduct