Why There are no Technological Imperatives

• Technologies are malleable – There is not a straight line from invention to ultimate use.

• Foresight is limited by both undue optimism and insufficient vision

• Technologies are socially constructed. The first uses are usually those that change everyday life the least.

• Technologies are path dependent: Their origins shape their futures.

Technologies are Malleable

…And dead ends are common

South Jersey Magazine, Winter 2002, p. 4

“Jinnosuke Kajino planned a bicycle railroad. This plan did not materialize. This railroad bicycle does not understand even structure. This plan is…dated Aug-ust, 1889.” http://www.eva.hi-ho.ne.jp/ootsu/ant5.html - sept. 15, 2002

Smithville Problems:

1. Sudden bumps.

2. Only one mon- orail led to con- frontations when riders headed in different directions!

It’s not just great minds that think alike…

Foresight is limited by undue optimism…

NY Mayor Wagner and friend talking with Mrs. Ladybird Johnson on picturephone, 1964 Newsday http://future.newsday.com/5/fbak0507.htm, Sept. 15, 2002

Electro & Sparko: GE Exhibit, NY Worlds Fair, 1939

http://www.moah.org/exhibits/archives/robots.html, Sept. 15, 2002

Or too little vision:

The future of e-mail,

1983

Atlanta Journal Constitution, Dec. 18, 1983

Technologies often move from business to the home

http://members.aol.com/allenamet/PhonoBooks.html 9/15/02

Edison with wax cyllinder photograph. The phonograph was first commercialized in 1888 by Jesse Lippincott, who thought it would replace stenographers and notepads. It didn’t.

http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/EDISON_HIST_PHONO.html 9 15 02

Later, people paid to hear phonograph recordings in public…

Technologies are Path Dependent

• ARPA was initially funded to have military uses, which meant it was produced to be durable, robust, and hard-to-kill…

• When libertarian hackers use that kind of technology, they are able to foster very different values (decentralization, free speech, easy mobilization of collective action, not to mention less noble forms of hacking) based on:

– Open architecture

– Decentralized computing

– Redundant functions

(1) The team that deployed ARPAnet in 1969, including John Postel, David Crocker and Vincent Cerf.

(2) Arpanet Map from 1973

How do Technologies Spread?

• Prices go down as demand grows

• People have varying reservation prices for purchase

• Shape of diffusion curve reflects

1) the relationship between price and volume sold (i.e. how quickly price

declines as market grows) and – 2) the distribution of reservation prices (price

elasticity)

• Reservation prices differ from group to group

What is Distinctive about Information Technologies?

Markets are Networks

• INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES ARE NETWORK GOODS:

Goods or services for which each user’s utility is a positive function of the number of other users.

U.S. biotechnology industry network c. 2000, Walter Powell

Examples of Network Goods

Telephone

Napster/KaZaa/etc.,

E-Bay

Adobe Acrobat

Household Penetration , Selected Media (from Schement 1999)

• Television and radio– single purchase

– common culture

– rapid rise

• Telephone and cable– subscription

– private use

– slower increase