gemini - kennedy.gemi.dev

💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › misc › phases-of-technology.gmi captured on 2021-12-06 at 14:29:53. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The Five Phases of Technology

---

Phase 1: Origin, development and first hobbyist community.

The technology is invented for the first time, often as little more than an intellectual exercise. It gets researched internally by a governmental or educational institution, or sometimes by a company or individual.
Researchers and academics (or the company or individual) complete their initial development of the technology and decide not to build it further. Its existence, and access to it, is opened to the public.
Technically-minded hobbyists pick it up and a community forms around it. The community builds it further into a viable technology.
The technology experiences a "golden age" as a free, open, deregulated paradise. It rises in grassroots popularity as a result. Barrier to entry remains high, however, due to the technical knowledge required to use it.

Phase 2: Mainstream introduction, commercialization and dominance.

A forward-looking company sees potential profit in the technology and makes their own watered-down version. The watered-down version is marketed to, and designed to be used by, people who are not tech-savvy.
The general public falls in love with the watered-down version, and it becomes the hot new technology that everyone simply must have. It enjoys a heyday, being recommended and used by pretty much everyone. The original hobbyists are hired by corporations to develop it professionally.
Other companies quickly jump on the bandwagon and create their own versions, causing the technology to be diluted and dumbed-down to a shadow of its former self. A flood of intellectual-property claims make the technology, or at least its extensions and wrappers, proprietary.

Phase 3: First problems, top-out and end of heyday.

The ubiquity of the technology leads some people to use it for taboo, dangerous or illegal purposes. It develops an unsavory reputation in some parts of the mainstream. Moralists start to complain that it's not being regulated enough.
Companies join the cry to regulate the technology, primarily as a means of destroying competition. Media outlets report on the "danger" of the technology in order to attract fear-driven views and clicks. Public opposition to the technology grows but is not overwhelming.
The government uses public outrage to seize control over the technology. The technology is stifled by the restrictive patents, licenses and copyrights. The little remaining growth potential is crushed by government regulation.
Technically-minded hobbyists begin to lose interest in the technology because it can no longer be developed freely. Bleeding-edge enthusiasts and some trend-setting casual users are off-put by its restrictions or reputation, and they switch to something else. However, the technology still enjoys considerable popularity in the general public.

Phase 4: Popular decline, retirement and obsolescence.

One or more events cause mainstream use of the technology to begin declining.

* The restrictions might cause all development, even commercial, to slow to a standstill.

* The technology might reach its practical limit and be unable to evolve further.

* An incompatible technology might rise up and outcompete it.

* Its bad reputation might overshadow it and cause the mainstream to disavow it.

* It might be found to be fundamentally and irreparably flawed in some way.

Companies start to deprecate the technology and use it only as a fallback. It falls out of style and the public sees it as outdated and archaic. It becomes legacy technology, only used casually by a few holdouts.
Major organizations eventually intentionally break compatibility. All remaining casual users are forced to switch away, and the only remaining users are hardcore, knowledgeable enthusiasts. Despite the complete evaporation of any significant userbase, the old regulations and IP restrictions remain.

Phase 5: Second hobbyist community, miniature revival and death.

A small, dedicated core community keeps the technology alive unofficially. For a while the glory of the early days are reclaimed on a small scale. Its unofficial usage violates the old corporate and government restrictions; the community is forced underground and becomes even smaller as a result.
The tiny size of the core community leads to stagnation. Usable supplies become harder to source and compatible code becomes harder to maintain. Eventually even the hardcore hobbyists lose interest or are unable to continue.
The technology dies, abandoned and forgotten. Most of the content that could only be accessed through the technology is lost.

---

Obviously not every technology goes through these five phases, but in my experience, this is the norm. At time of writing, I see Gemini solidly in phase 1. I hope that given its functional limitations, which are quite intentional, it will not suffer the same commercialization that kills so many other useful technologies.

---

Up One Level

Home

[Last updated: 2021-10-28]