One quote, in particular, struck me - "There are a few problems with the consumer-as-surgeon thesis, though. For a start, it relies on the early adopters of technology, who are generally rich..."
A proud cord-cutter since 2006, I am certainly not rich. And most of the people I know without cable aren't either; they are young, technologically savvy or forced-into-thrift via the recession.
Do you think early adopters are "rich"?
But now, as my income has gone up and my free time has gone down, I find myself doing less early adopting, and waiting a bit longer till all the college kids work out the kinks for me. Sure, I'm still an early adopter in the grand scheme of things (I dropped cable a few years ago for torrents, for example), but I'm definitely picking things up later in their lifespans than I used to.
And, eventually, the product of smart choices and thrift by someone young can make them rich.
That said, no- I don't know a single early adopter who is independently wealthy (which fits my definition of 'rich').
When I purchased my house in 2008, I proceeded to call Comcast (intending to sign up for basic cable + Internet), set my iPhone on speakerphone, and paint the walls of my new rooms. After three nights of 30-45 minute waits with no answer, I gave up and purchased AT&T DSL.
For the US take your salary divide by 50k and say "I make X times the average household income in the USA."
This is actually a weird case, because usually being an early adopter requires a financial outlay to purchase some product that provides some sort of superior service of some kind. In this case, we see people with the early adopter mindset but trying to save money who are instead giving up some convenient service (at least, cable with DVR is convenient) for a cheaper alternative that is now merely "good enough". Because I've done it, and while I'm slowly putting the pieces back together as the world catches up with me, I have definitely sacrificed some things. I'm not getting superior service here, I'm cobbling together bits and pieces.
Still, we are getting there. Sports was a big hole but I just watched $MY_COLLEGE_TEAM's last game of the year online in HD over the Internet. That's progress vs. even just three months ago. Cord cutting is getting easier and easier.
An acquaintance bought one of the first Compaq computers. He paid $4000 for it. He kept it in his office and would tell people: "When that computer came out, had I instead bought $4000 of stock in Compaq, I would be much wealthier today. Instead I bought the computer, learned to program it and did OK."
(Who also happens to be learning how to code.)
Problem solved, $50+/month saved.
And when I cut the cable the last time, I asked them how much it'd cost to deactivate my cable modem. They immediately gave me a 33% discount.
Now that I think about it I spend a lot more than $50 at bars going out to watch live sports because I don't have cable.
I would definitely buy more early products if I was rich just because I have the financial backing to withstand the risk that an early product has. E.g. I'm waiting to buy the iPad now in hopes of a better iPad version coming out soon. But if money was no issue, I would buy the iPad now and the new version when it comes out.
But of course, there are some people that would be early adopters despite not being rich. It's just that the statistics of how rich early adopters are would be skewed by the newly rich being more willing to take more risk and spend their money on untried products.
Well, that and they have too many functional analog TVs. That's the only reason I haven't switched my parents off is that we'd need Boxee boxes or similar, and they haven't quite come down in price to the point where I'd rather not just buy a laptop and pretend it's a TV.
If you didn't have an iPhone or twitter account by 2007 or don't have accounts on lots of now failed startups from the day they got techcrunched, you're not an early adoptor.
I know I'm not particularly an early adoptor, most of my users are.
2. That said, some new gadgets & services are stand-ins for others which are more expensive or less accessible
3. Except for #1 and #2, Yes, early adopters are male white privilege
