Blog post: swansont: I Didn't Know it was a Race

Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

I think there are a few criteria to look at here, beyond the price of the new toys: the level of infrastructure for the device and the maturity/level of the quality during early adoption, among other barriers to adopt a new product. CDs, for example, represented a new format for music, but the quality was as good as it was going to get, and required no new infrastructure to deliver. Same for DVDs and video cassettes. Digital cameras did not deliver the quality to challenge film for quite a while — we had our Megapixel growth boom last decade — and the early cameras had other issues that detracted from the "film is free" advantage. Cell phones needed a network, and fax machines needed someone on the other end to fax to you — mass adoption required a critical mass.

Boom boxes? We already had tapes to play, no infrastructure was required, and the quality was pretty much as good as it would get. No hurdles to adoption. Read and comment on the full post