There’s a good case for this
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I periodically think about the hype around the Segway, how luminary types were over the moon for it in private demos but then the general public decided it was uncool, and think maybe actually the luminaries had it right and it’s the public that biffed it.
@inthehands I really don’t think tepid or even vaguely hostile reactions to the Segway slowed the micromobility revolution. I think battery tech evolution and production capacity are more likely.
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To be clear: the Segway as released was •not• a very good product. But it was not a worse product than, say, the Apple-1, which was also clumsy, nerdy, impractical, expensive. ($3400 in today’s money and it didn’t even have a keyboard!)
Yet in the latter case the response was “This is the future! Let’s do this! Let’s figure it out!” And with the Segway, the response was “How mockable, nobody should ever try to build anything like this ever again!”
A crumb went down the wrong way with micromobility in 2001, and I’m not willing to lay that entire at the feet of one product’s marketing team. We collectively screwed up.
ETA: This •started• as a thread about e-bikes and e-scooters; scroll up
@inthehands Thing was, not many people hurt themselves on the Apple.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@inthehands I really don’t think tepid or even vaguely hostile reactions to the Segway slowed the micromobility revolution. I think battery tech evolution and production capacity are more likely.
This may well be the case — though I do suspect that tech might have advanced faster if investors & the public believed in the applications sooner
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@retech @inthehands @Nicovel0 It's been speculated on for almost a decade now, but the recent releases essentially confirmed it. This article summarizes everything from pre-"The Files" release if you want to learn more. https://christine-negroni.medium.com/jeffrey-epstein-dean-kamen-connection-through-aviation-influencer-bb0e767dbfcf
There's still no legal proof, but for anyone capable of critical thought the evidence is extremely damning.
@retech @inthehands @Nicovel0 I guess I should clarify that the Epstein file releases included pictures of Kamen on Epstein's island with Epstein (and Richard Branson), and there is at least one photo with a woman in an inexcusable position.
Epstein also discussed in his emails people he knew who, as guests of Kamen, attended events for Kamen's youth robotics org.
For all the good Kamen did for the world with his intentions, it's well past time to separate the man from his work.
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@inthehands Thing was, not many people hurt themselves on the Apple.
@annehargreaves
Yet the high injury rates from class 3 e-bikes have not slowed their adoption. And speaking of injuries…have you ever heard about cars? -
…I’m asking us to pause all of that entrenched reaction, and think about why our reaction was:
“What a bad product! How douchy! Ha ha!”
…instead of what was in hindsight probably a much better reaction:
“Oh, what a good idea for a product •direction•! All-electric human-sized transportation…huh, that might just change the world! If we can improve on this very clumsy first attempt at execution….”
@inthehands I think this is a good thought exercise, and helpful to reflect on when considering new products.
Also worth mentioning that a lot of Kamen's messaging at the time was along these lines, that electrified personal transportation could change the world in substantial ways, it just happened that Segway was the *only* version in existence.
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This may well be the case — though I do suspect that tech might have advanced faster if investors & the public believed in the applications sooner
@inthehands I mean, maybe, but… they’re so good at manufacturing demand, I have a hard time pinning this on consumers, particularly given how organically enthusiastic ebike riders took to the products once they became popularly available.
Maybe it’s a chicken-egg thing. Maybe capitalism is not in fact all that amazing at discovering and satisfying preferences.
Good lines of thought to chew on!
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To be clear: the Segway as released was •not• a very good product. But it was not a worse product than, say, the Apple-1, which was also clumsy, nerdy, impractical, expensive. ($3400 in today’s money and it didn’t even have a keyboard!)
Yet in the latter case the response was “This is the future! Let’s do this! Let’s figure it out!” And with the Segway, the response was “How mockable, nobody should ever try to build anything like this ever again!”
A crumb went down the wrong way with micromobility in 2001, and I’m not willing to lay that entire at the feet of one product’s marketing team. We collectively screwed up.
ETA: This •started• as a thread about e-bikes and e-scooters; scroll up
@inthehands I think it's a little of both because the aesthetics were atrocious and it feels like the inventors must never have had a job that requires you to stand. Just looking at those made my knees hurt. When tech companies think they can make a better UI, they're more often wrong. I think those rental scooters are something there was a strong negative reaction to because of how they'd clog up streets, but it helps having stuff like that to reduce dependence on automobiles in the city.
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@inthehands I think this is a good thought exercise, and helpful to reflect on when considering new products.
Also worth mentioning that a lot of Kamen's messaging at the time was along these lines, that electrified personal transportation could change the world in substantial ways, it just happened that Segway was the *only* version in existence.
@inthehands Another good thing to keep in mind when thinking about the Segway is that it was a byproduct of, and a way to fund, the development of the iBOT, a wheelchair which allows users to be eye-height with standing people, use counters and other objects designed for users at standing height, and ascend/descend stairs.
It was and still is a revolutionary product for accessibility, but definitely did not benefit from the lambasting of the Segway.
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@annehargreaves
Yet the high injury rates from class 3 e-bikes have not slowed their adoption. And speaking of injuries…have you ever heard about cars?@inthehands I found this about injury rates although hard to relate it to no. of users as no. is hard to assess
https://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/10.1308/rcsbull.2024.71Isn't the problem with Segway type devices that they are risky for the user on the road but dangerous for everyone else on the pavement? Similar to scooters which were banned in the town centre where I live as a result of interacting badly with pedestrians.
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The micromobility revolution was •right there• 25 years ago, if only we’d been willing to go for it, if only we’d been able to see it. That’s…what, 15? 20? years head start on how it’s unfolded.
That’s a head start I really wish we’d had on the current climate disaster that’s unfolding. But no, we were too busy making fun of it for being nerdy.
@inthehands huh, yeah you're right. I remember laughing at "we're going to restructure our cities around this" in 2003 and now .... we are.
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@inthehands the direction still has some significant problems: useful in cities but less so else where and only accessible to some people. Tech tends to favour groups unaffected by problems like that. I reckon that some of the negative reactions comes from people clocking that the product is borne of a vision of the world that doesn’t include them.
@benedictc @inthehands
If Uber’s model of violating all the labor and other laws was aroundAnd losing money so the winning scooter outfits run at a state subsidized loss to make them available for everybody almost for free
Then Uber would’ve been all over the place and gotten some competition and maybe after some improvements taken off
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To be clear: the Segway as released was •not• a very good product. But it was not a worse product than, say, the Apple-1, which was also clumsy, nerdy, impractical, expensive. ($3400 in today’s money and it didn’t even have a keyboard!)
Yet in the latter case the response was “This is the future! Let’s do this! Let’s figure it out!” And with the Segway, the response was “How mockable, nobody should ever try to build anything like this ever again!”
A crumb went down the wrong way with micromobility in 2001, and I’m not willing to lay that entire at the feet of one product’s marketing team. We collectively screwed up.
ETA: This •started• as a thread about e-bikes and e-scooters; scroll up
@inthehands Yah, that's because you're wrong about why Segway failed.
Good inventions happen when the underlying technology is mature enough to support them. The Segway didn't fail to vanguard the micromobility revolution because influencers thought it was dorky; the Segway failed because the underlying technology wasn't cheap and small and lightweight.
If Segway had done a successful marketing campaign to somehow make Segways cool; and they had launched Segway 2.0 with the underlying design flaws fixed (move the wheels inline, lose the gyro) it STILL would have been expensive, short-range, and heavy. Because battery technology was not even close to ready.
You're lending way too much weight to the idea that we got scared of looking dorky.
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To be clear: the Segway as released was •not• a very good product. But it was not a worse product than, say, the Apple-1, which was also clumsy, nerdy, impractical, expensive. ($3400 in today’s money and it didn’t even have a keyboard!)
Yet in the latter case the response was “This is the future! Let’s do this! Let’s figure it out!” And with the Segway, the response was “How mockable, nobody should ever try to build anything like this ever again!”
A crumb went down the wrong way with micromobility in 2001, and I’m not willing to lay that entire at the feet of one product’s marketing team. We collectively screwed up.
ETA: This •started• as a thread about e-bikes and e-scooters; scroll up
@inthehands
I still don't agree. 'We' reacted as an appropriate immune system to a billionaire-hyped proposal.
Scooters are working now because cars are fading back.
A billionaire proposal was never going to subtract from cars. It was only going to subtract from existing facilities and future planning for bikes and walkers. That's how power works.
This was not a 'We missed it' 25 years ago.
It's an opportunity now. -
To be clear: the Segway as released was •not• a very good product. But it was not a worse product than, say, the Apple-1, which was also clumsy, nerdy, impractical, expensive. ($3400 in today’s money and it didn’t even have a keyboard!)
Yet in the latter case the response was “This is the future! Let’s do this! Let’s figure it out!” And with the Segway, the response was “How mockable, nobody should ever try to build anything like this ever again!”
A crumb went down the wrong way with micromobility in 2001, and I’m not willing to lay that entire at the feet of one product’s marketing team. We collectively screwed up.
ETA: This •started• as a thread about e-bikes and e-scooters; scroll up
@inthehands Consumer marketing is somewhat random and all about stories, I don't know why the popular narrative for the Segway was so bad but it does seem like it set the "micromobility" idea back a bit. An interesting question is if a better introduction and a bit better sales would have accelerated the rapid battery and motor improvements that make the $120 hoverboard possible now.
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…I’m asking us to pause all of that entrenched reaction, and think about why our reaction was:
“What a bad product! How douchy! Ha ha!”
…instead of what was in hindsight probably a much better reaction:
“Oh, what a good idea for a product •direction•! All-electric human-sized transportation…huh, that might just change the world! If we can improve on this very clumsy first attempt at execution….”
@inthehands I see the point, but I know for a fact that the specific way the Segway bombed made investors skittish; there might have been petrochem anti-marketing involved, but I think they didn't see it as enough of a threat.
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@inthehands I see the point, but I know for a fact that the specific way the Segway bombed made investors skittish; there might have been petrochem anti-marketing involved, but I think they didn't see it as enough of a threat.
> the Segeay bombed made investors skittish
This exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.
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I periodically think about the hype around the Segway, how luminary types were over the moon for it in private demos but then the general public decided it was uncool, and think maybe actually the luminaries had it right and it’s the public that biffed it.
@inthehands I recall it was mostly that they built a lot of hype and then the resulting product didn't seem to match.
But really, all the hoverboards, onewheels, etc. are the Segway successors and you see tons of them.
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The micromobility revolution was •right there• 25 years ago, if only we’d been willing to go for it, if only we’d been able to see it. That’s…what, 15? 20? years head start on how it’s unfolded.
That’s a head start I really wish we’d had on the current climate disaster that’s unfolding. But no, we were too busy making fun of it for being nerdy.
@inthehands It was not right there. Technology had to improve to make the devices cheap and useful enough to be mass-market and viable for things like bike shares. There is no reason to think that that would’ve happened faster if Segways had been more popular. You’re just trying to give moral valence to your nostalgia.
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@inthehands It was not right there. Technology had to improve to make the devices cheap and useful enough to be mass-market and viable for things like bike shares. There is no reason to think that that would’ve happened faster if Segways had been more popular. You’re just trying to give moral valence to your nostalgia.
Your last sentence is wrong: I mocked it mercilessly at the time, and now wonder whether I should have done a better job spotting the good direction buried in the bad product.
