Originally Posted by
Psimet2001
I shared the article on Facebook. One of my friends joked about the loss of watts. i pointed out that in order to lose watts he must first actually have watts. This all contributes to this fallacy of tech. I'm a tech driven guy, hell it's my actual job in this industry, but I kind of feel like I'm some sort of 80's coked out stock broker who woke up in 2019 broke, divorced 3 times and staring at an AARP card he got in the mail. We all know the tech doesn't matter nearly as much as what we want to think it does.
There's a progression:
1. New tech comes out
2. It is widely discussed
From there it goes a few different ways.
Sometimes...
3. It works well
4. Everyone adopts it
5. It becomes "boring" to talk about because it's obvious and everyone is using it
Examples: Air Filled Tires, Biking is Faster Than Jogging, Significantly Lighter Bikes Are Faster Than Significantly Heavier Bikes, Chains with oil
Or...
3. It works worse
4. Some people adopt it
5. Those people have invested mental and social energy into the new thing and try to maintain that they made a good choice by outarguing everyone else
Or...
3. It works basically the same
4. Some people adopt it
5. Those people have invested mental and social energy in the new thing and get into a status "which is better" battle over 2 things that are basically the same
When new tech actually works it gets talked about for a while then it sticks around but it's not "cool" to talk about it much any more.
When new tech doesn't provide an advantage or is even slightly worse, the arguments about it go on forever.