Ex-Gizmodo guru Joel Johnson returns to the site to rant about why he hates gadgets and early adopters.
Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. You don’t need it. Wait a year until the reviews come out and the other suckers too addicted to having the very latest and greatest buy it, put up a review, and have moved on to something else. Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn’t do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it.
You want to know the punchline? The average Joe that makes up the market is smarter than you saps. The market-at-large waits until a clear leader emerges, then takes a modest plunge. You may think you’re making up the “bleeding edge” of “gadget pimpatude” but you’re really just a loose confederation of marks the consumer electronics industry uses as free market research and easy money.
Benjy
on 15 Feb 07I’m glad my stance on gadgets has been validated. I’m always on top of what’s new & upcoming, but I always hang back on buying for a while until the pros/cons are better known and prices have dropped. Why $3000 for an HGTV when I can spend a year learning the tradeoffs between LCD, DLP and plasma while ultimately saving $1800? Why pay $500 for a cell phone that’ll be $200 in 6 months?
The other dumb move too many gadget freaks make is buying way more capabilities than they need. Why pay top dollar for the fastest processor on the market when one that’s 95% as fast costs half, and the extra speed won’t be noticed when using Office or surfing the web? Why pay for a 10MP camera when all you want to do is print 4×6 vacation pics? Or spending an extra $5000-1000 to get more horsepower when even the base engine can do 0-60 faster than one could ever safely accelerate on public roads.
Jay Haynes
on 15 Feb 07I agree. I was thinking about my Apple purchases and realized I always buy v2 – from my first Apple II+, my Mac Plus, my switch to OS 10.2 and even my new MacBook Core 2.
But with the iPhone, I am definitely buying the $600 v 1.0. But I think it is actually a different kind of “new” product. I view it as an extension of my OS X life onto a phone (I can’t stand my Treo anymore and want to throw it against a wall a few times every week). So yes, the iPhone is new and will appeal to early adopters. But I think part of its success will come from non-newness of OS X. And by limiting third party apps, Apple should be able to extend the “it just works” OS X branding to the iPhone.
And of course, I really hope it just works.
Jordan
on 15 Feb 07Sniff… the truth hurts me.
Odd for anybody who sells products to say stuff like that, right? Imagine such a world:
Bill Gates: “Yeah Vista just came out, but some of your favorite games won’t work with it. nVidia’s late on the drivers and we kinda overdid it on the UAC prompts. Give us a few months to release a patch or two and then go on and pick it up.”
Steve Jobs: “Hey, we’ve got this great new iPhone coming out. But you know us at Apple: if you don’t like the current color or form factor, just wait a year and we’ll release a smaller ‘Nano’ iPhone, or maybe one in white. Oh, and you might want to hold off on buying one anyway. Our first gen stuff sometimes has battery and scratch problems. I’d advise holding out for version two.”
Crazy, huh?
Michael
on 15 Feb 07You people are boring. Of course gadget freaks don’t “need” it. They want it. Nobody needs $100 bottle of whine, but some people want it. Nobody needs a $400 dinner, but some people want it. Nobody needs a Lexus, but some people want it. It’s a preference thing.
Anonymous Coward
on 15 Feb 07Michael, how apropos that you would mention a $100 bottle of whine. It reminds me of a very fitting quote by the famous Walt Whitman, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.”
Although Walt said this during a serious bout of dementia brought on by a horse riding accident, I do believe that such notions are just as relevant in this discussion. Are we not all freaks in our desires for fast cars and faster women?
I beg the question: are our loves, be them technological or more traditional, simply flights of fancy?
Keith Mancuso
on 15 Feb 07That statement is only true if your only thinking about your own self interested in the situation. Its going to sound crazy but the hardware industry needs early adopters much like software needs beta testors. Not just to figure out bugs but also to validate ideas, form factors, and feature sets.
Of course if your only in it for y our self then your better off waiting til prices go down, but if your hoping to advance the industry in your own little way…..rock on.
beto
on 15 Feb 07There’s some holier-than-thou-ness to early adopters that always get to my nerves, as if paying a premium to get the fanciest, latest and greatest rushed-to-market gadget from (insert favorite trendy high tech company name here) at all costs somehow turns them instantly into better, smarter, more desirable people. Sheesh.
Not that I haven’t been on a similar situation – I was looking for a Mac laptop around the time the Macbooks came out. I bought one from the first batch on the spot. Of course, time showed me I should have known better. Actually, this has been the only Apple product I’ve ever bought a first version of – and believe me, I did learn my lesson very well.
Ara Pehlivanian
on 15 Feb 07Being on the bleeding edge only means you’re bleeding money.
Trevor Bramble
on 15 Feb 07Oh man, I have a new hero. Superb rant.
I think that’s missing the point. Paying high prices for luxury items is one thing. Habitually buying anything that’s offered, no matter the cost, is something altogether different.
Josh Treadwell
on 15 Feb 07What about the “bleeding edge” tech guys that are in college and don’t have money? I think they’re the true champions here. They take the way of the slightly-better-than-average joe and wait to get what they need, and don’t buy what they don’t. We’re the guys with the affordable near-bleeding edge stuff for computer games (thank you black friday), manage to get cheap refurbished blackberries on eBay, and earn it all back while doing IT for dorm room mates. Also, we never subscribe to expensive services online unless they’re actually USEFUL. Can’t afford Jotspot? I’ll just build a linux box with Mediawiki and a few plug ins and give out my free dynamic DNS domain to my friends. Squeezebox? Hah! How about a micro-atx Linux box to run a browser with Pandora on it, and I hook it up to my receiver? Then I can use it with VLC to watch all of my video content! Bleeding edge gizmo freaks who overspend are either (a) curious guys who are “in the know” with more money than they know what to do with, (b) saps who waste money and aren’t quite “in the know” enough, or© People who want to look “in the know” by owning something they read about on Gizmodo, but don’t know what the !@$# they’re doing.
icelander
on 15 Feb 07I agree totally. Everyone is rushing out to buy HDTVs. Why? So you can see pimples better on a bad actor in a bad movie with no plot? So you can see the blades of grass that millionaires in tights run into each other on? So the commercials look more lifelike, even though they’re not based in reality at all?
No thanks. I’ll sit back and wait until I’m forced by the gadget companies to get an HDTV so their accomplices in the media industry can bring me the same crap with better picture quality. And even then I’ll buy a used one.
The only reason I’ll be buying an iPhone in June is because it’s my wife’s birthday and she needs a new cell phone and a new iPod, and I’d spend the same amount regardless.
Ken B.
on 15 Feb 07I’m calling BS. People’s eagerness to buy technologies in the early stages has very little to do with intelligence or lack there of. They have different values. A few of those values may include:
Ken B.
on 15 Feb 07(hit the tab and space button by accident).
A few of those values may include: – Fashion and appearance more than any technical benefits. – In hdtv’s, a major selling point is that they are thin and make the living room look better. – Their current experience with a technology is painful to the point that they are willing to try new things sooner then others.
This is an area where markets are effective at filtering out technologies that are ineffective.
David Chartier
on 15 Feb 07Another good point a friend just brought up when discussing this is the dramatic decline of v1 quality products. 37signals is inarguably exempt from this issue, but Joel’s “free market research” rings far too true. Companies aren’t testing their products anymore, and both the market and consumer trust in these companies are suffering.
I’m not saying people should or shouldn’t be early adopters, but these companies are at fault for segmenting the market in the name of profits and shooting all of us in the foot.
Long Time Listener - Repeat Caller
on 15 Feb 07I find it ironic that positive write-up about a rant against getting the newest things in hardware is on a blog from a company at the forefront of the newest things in web apps.
Are they hinting that we shouldn’t all rush out and pay for Sunrise / Highrise the day it goes live? Methinks no…
Ruben
on 15 Feb 07Early adopters buy less than perfect products? This just in…no shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm
street
on 15 Feb 07And I just ran out of ‘you are a douche’ cards..
I’m sure Mister Johnson already knows this.
Nathan
on 15 Feb 07If it were not for early adopters, how would cool new products ever reach a broad audience? Some people enjoy innovation and buying brand new technologies is fun.
I suppose if you buy first the first gen of everything and then complain about it, you are dumb. But the act of buying first gen products doesn’t mean you are less intelligent than someone who waits. It just means you have a stronger interest in those products, or you have more money to spend.
His advice makes sense for those on a strict budget.
Benjy
on 15 Feb 07But to what extent do early adopters allow companies to release products that aren’t yet what they should be? Have companies trained people to “expect” inferior products initially, and thus have people pay for the right to be part of their R&D/beta testing. It’s one thing if a free website isn’t perfect when in beta, but is it OK for a plasma TV to suffer ESPN score ticker burn-in along with a $15,000 price tag? Or should the technology have been advanced beyond that before being released to the public?
Tom Greenhaw
on 15 Feb 07Running out and buying the latest of something that is critical to your survival is pretty dumb, and natural selection weeds people like this out.
Other times one senses a new product or service that allows you to turn a corner to see possibilities that were not otherwise apparent. Buying a flawed product may very well be a good idea if it provides a glimpse of the future. This glimpse of the future can allow one to be prepared for change and provide opportunity to those who are well prepared.
An besides, f nobody bought version 1 there would be no version 2.
jm
on 15 Feb 07I agree that consumption is mostly about perceived value. The bleeding-edge criticism sounds like sour grapes, honestly. In a open market, buying an early version with disposable income is a luxury. Who is worse off: the person who skipped the first iPod and bought the second generation or the person who bought both? If the person who bought both takes it in stride, they should do it.
@ Benjy. I have to disagree with the horsepower discouragement. Faster acceleration is often worth the cost, as are sport-tuned suspensions and leather-wrapped steering wheels. It’s like asking, “Why take the winding road home when the straight one is shorter?”
Warren Henning
on 15 Feb 07If he’s only talking about gadgets, maybe. If you mean early adopters of nearly everything, then he’s full of shit. Anyone who uses Rails is an early adopter since Ruby isn’t as popular as Java or C#.
Buying something for the sake of newness or just to be trendy is dumb but having good taste in technology isn’t. Reading a “gadget blog” is definitely retarded.
Micajah Vickers
on 16 Feb 07I agree with all of this except the “horsepower in the car thing”, if you made this statement you must not have much horsepower in your car.
350 horse is the minimum, 400 is good, 550 is better , it just feels so right.
M6 http://www.m5board.com/temp/HARTGE_E60_M5_1max.jpg
Dave Sanders
on 16 Feb 07If it weren’t for early adopters weeding out the crap for us, the “average joes” would become the early adopters. And don’t tell me that reviewers would sort it out – please, the best reviews are done by early adopters on their blogs – not the likes of a 15 second, “this is what the buttons do” review on C|Net.
Anyway, why the hell is it anyone’s business what early adopters do with their money? Seriously – sounds more like jealousy to me.
No one NEEDS anything. People WANT to spend their money on the newest plastic thing-a-ma-bob. Good for them. It keeps the economy moving. (well, at least moving over in China…)
Dave again
on 16 Feb 07“I’m not saying people should or shouldn’t be early adopters, but these companies are at fault for segmenting the market in the name of profits and shooting all of us in the foot.”
Please – like beer companies make you drink, tobacco companies make you smoke, and gun companies make you shoot people…
“I pulled back the curtain to find ‘the man’ and all I found was a mirror…”
Karl N
on 16 Feb 07Why lead when you can follow? Well, someone’s got to lead – usually the person with more motivation.
If you consider technology a core aspect of your personality, you’re going to be more proactive about buying it and forming opinions. If it’s just recreation to you, you’re not going to take risks. You probably have fun even though things don’t work right away. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it.
If you’re trying to be economical, you definitely shouldn’t early-adopt. It seems like an expensive hobby…
Software Guy
on 20 Feb 07In time, the prices of gadgets go down and the firmware gets fixed, bugs get fixed, etc. Also, in the case of PDAs and mobile phones, new software appears that is compatible with them.
This discussion is closed.