The big numbers are back, the numbers that are the litmus test of the success of technologies, the numbers that we have been chasing for years to decree the success of innovations starting from growth rates: Which social network took the least time to reach 10, 100, 1000 million users? Which technology took the least time to enter the top 10, 100, 1000 million homes in the world? Many remember it, it is a kind of run-up, a sort of exponential and conceptual evolution of the famous Moore’s law that indicated and predicted the rate of evolution of microprocessor technology. Growth numbers that have sometimes been consolidated, sometimes followed by equally dramatic falls, do you remember for example the name of that social network for which everyone had become passionate during the pandemic period and today it has completely disappeared? So fast was its meteor that today we don’t even remember its name anymore (it was called Clubhouse). In other cases, the downward trajectory has been slower, either because these products and services have not been able to follow the evolution of technologies and user needs, or because in the medium term their social, ethical, environmental impact has proved incapable of stemming counterproductive drifts and finally in other cases there are examples of exponential success of technologies and technological services that have become popular and still are, which still maintain a growth curve and a sufficiently positive reputation to continue attracting users. If, however, it may seem rather easy to do these calculations when it comes to technologies and technological services that are digital and that are often offered free of charge or almost free , it is certainly less immediate when it comes to technologies, or rather technological products, which also have a significant hardware component, which represent real paradigm shifts and which, Above all, they have costs that are not affordable for everyone. However, it is also true that when a product proves to be the perfect synthesis of what the market wants at a given time, it becomes a champion of giving substance to general problems, for example contributing to the reduction of environmental impact, and is proposed by companies that have a strong credibility with users, the so-called ‘early adopters’ initially and then the mass market, Then the scenario changes profoundly.
Apple and Tesla
Let’s take two very current examples: in 2023, the car model that recorded the highest commercial success in the world was the Tesla Model Y with 1.23 million units sold at a price that starts (today) at about 42 thousand euros per unit (in second and third place are two models manufactured by Toyota: Rav4 and Corolla, with 1.07 and 1.03 million Units Sold respectively ) ; and what promises to be the commercial success of the year: Apple Vision Pro VR with over 200 thousand units sold in the first ten days of launch at a price of $3500 a piece and with the expectation of selling more than a million units by the end of 2024. The history of innovation is studded with technologies, services and products that have made a difference, Facebook at the time had the merit of bringing people closer to the internet even who otherwise would not have found its use useful (with certainly questionable drifts in terms of social behavior), this has made it possible to spread internet connections more, to lower prices, to allow providers to make investments to make networks more reliable and faster. For years we have been hearing about voice over IP, it was the dawn of the internet and the opportunity to make voice travel on the network with a flexibility impossible with normal phones at negligible costs compared to those that once had long-distance, international and intercontinental calls, the turning point came when services such as Skype and then Whatsapp arrived and then the definitive boom with the pandemic and video services calls that have become a common object for many: Teams, Zoom, Meet, etc. The rest is history these days testified, for example, by the speed it took ChatGPT and generative AI in general to spread. Tesla has managed to change the paradigm in relation to the electric-powered car, it has done so by creating an attractive product but above all by creating an ecosystem around it: charging networks, software innovations, the community of owners, and so will Apple with Vision Pro, creating applications to make ‘spatial computing’ interesting for many, create the paradigmatic infrastructure to make it a tool capable of bringing real benefits, creating the global community of users. Tesla has been able to show how it has been possible to innovate in a deep and structural way a consolidated industry such as the automobile industry, it has forced all the other major manufacturers to rush to, at least try, to catch up and today, thanks to its commercial success, it is beginning to suffer the very strong competition of Chinese manufacturers who are learning to build high-quality vehicles, extremely innovative and able to meet the favor of consumers in Europe and America. Apple with Vision Pro could show that the time has come for a new relationship with the digital world, that the concept of the metaverse and virtual reality headset has reached a conceptual level and maturity that other manufacturers in the past have failed to bring to the market, a level that must be able to demonstrate real practicality, that it must spread in a healthy way, that it must have concrete benefits, that it must be accompanied by a software infrastructure where the software is both the applications and the users, something that in the past Google or Facebook smart glasses have failed to do, and thus proposing an interface that is indeed evolved but more humanly acceptable than proposals that, at least at present, still appear daring and certainly invasive such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink which in recent weeks has begun to be tested through the implantation of a brain chip that promises wonders, starting with Something like telepathy . (Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash and shavnya.com on Unsplash)
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