rootdir.com the root directory of the internetThe following is a theory of new technologies and how they spread, with a focus on products which have a platform/ecosystem component.
It's based on my direct experience in the AR/VR industry, alongside experience developing in early crypto and AI tech over the last 10+ years.
Usage = Value - FrictionHow often people use a product is a function of the value they get from it, minus the friction they experience getting to that value.
Equivalently, you can think of it in terms of money:
Price You're Willing To Pay = (Value To You) - (Costs To You)Every one of our monkey brains is constantly estimating this equation as we browse the web, decide what to do next, and so on. (see Information foraging)
Friction could be costs incurred to the user (high price tag, uncomfortable, long setup).
You can either make something SUPER high value if it's going to have high friction, and people will overcome any hurdle to use it.
OR make something super low friction and people will use it often, even if it's not that valuable.
Many technologies haven't reached the point to where the value is high enough to overcome the friction, like VR (lack of compelling content, battery life, comfort) and crypto (lack of compelling use cases, slow, complex).
Value = Utility + Emotion + Social StatusUtility is the direct, objective value you get from the product, like time or money saved. This is the core goal of the product, the problem it's solving.
Emotion is the value you get from the product making you feel good. It's the experience and the story. This can often outweigh the true utility.
Social status is the value you get from other people seeing you use the product. This can outweigh both the true utility and emotion.
A great example is a luxury car. It has real utility, but ultimately what makes it 2-20X more expensive than a normal car is the emotion and social status it provides.
Emotion = Surprise + ConnectionEmotion is a blend of the familiar and the novel. Too familiar, and it's obvious & boring. Too novel, and it's confusing or uncomfortable.
New products should bridge the gap between the old and new worlds. Using an icon like a folder or a floppy disk to represent a new concept like a file or save button is a great example of this.
The value products deliver is not linear. It's exponential.
Because many products live in the social space, one person sharing it with their friends can lead to a cascade of usage, and thus value accruing across its utility, emotion, and social status components.
All features and products should be evaluated in terms of their potential for exponential effects. The most pervasive tech is viral in every meaning of that word – the Internet itself, communication technology, memes, social media, and so on.
Nothing beats a product that its creators use themselves. Build anything else at your own peril.
Ultimately, though, you're not the sole creator. There may be many creators, developers, employees, sellers as part of your ecosystem. These are the most important people to attract, retain, and keep happy, as everyone else is served by them.
The next best users to focus on are likely not your friends, family, or typical people.
They're the enthusiasts of your product's niche. These are the power users, "prosumers", the pioneers, the tinkerers, and the early adopters.
They love the thing you're building, put up with friction, will share frequent feedback, and evangelize it to their friends. Keep working with them until you've changed their lives.
The masses don't care about your product. They don't want to change their habits. They don't want to pay money.
The product must reach a critical mass of clear & obvious value, near zero friction, or adoption before the average Joe will even consider it.
Ultimately, it's not worth much of your time to try to convince the 'general public' to use your product. Or at least, no one reading this should worry about this yet.
Let the product and its users and speak for themselves. Broader adoption will happen naturally once you build and market something to a target audience that loves it.
The best ecosystems are open, where anyone can contribute, and where the best ideas win.
Any gatekeeping activities can cause dramatic downstream effects. Even a simple requirement to contact a salesperson can cause a 90%+ drop in interest, leading to amazing developers & ideas being lost.
Further, any gatekeeping will subtly shift the ecosystem to be more about serving gatekeepers than serving the users. Let the users decide what's best.
The next best ecosystems are open, but require payment to participate.
This keeps a certain level of quality and commitment, but still allow anyone to contribute.
This makes most sense if you: have significant costs for developer infrastructure, support, etc.; if you have a large, established market which the value of is clear of; or if you simply want to block more spammy/low-quality contributions.
In any of these cases, it's probably still worth making significant parts of the ecosystem free (like the documentation, forums, SDKs, etc.) to attract new developers, while charging for distribution or support.
The best creators are just like the best users: enthusiasts on the cutting edge.
Fortune 500 companies or the mainstream, professional class are extremely unlikely to propel a new technology forward. Despite their resources, they are too risk-averse, too slow, and too focused on the status quo or divergent incentives. This is mostly a distraction! There's some value here, but it's definitely not the main event.
On the other extreme, you have the masses. Trying to make a creator platform for the average person is another fool's errand. 99% of people will never create anything, and creating more dumbed down tools is a distraction from the real creators.
The leaves us with the best creators. They are not just enthusiasts but entrepid inventors. Entrepreneurs. Hackers. Artists. The unemployed. Students. Weirdos. And so on. These are people who are betting it all on this. They are the ones who will create the future. Help them, and they will help you! Serving them is the best way to serve the masses.
Overall, this theory implies the following:
This seems to be the pattern that's played out for the most successful modern technology platforms: personal computers, operating systems, the Internet, smartphones, and social media, albeit with less intentionality.