The Mainstream Adopter’s Curse
Written on March 20, 2008
I stay behind the times on everything. It works for me; I like it. This extends beyond avoiding early adoption – it extends to avoiding *mainstream* adoption.
The Happy Moron is a prime example. 2008 is a late year to start blogging. I could have been swaying people’s opinions for the past five years or more!!
But I must say that its *nice* to start blogging in 2008. The software takes just a few clicks to install. It’s free, feature rich and mature. There are many well established and successful blogs that I can study, and there’s a reasonable level of in-depth analysis about blogging which helps me learn from the mistakes of others.
When I buy a computer game, I make sure that it’s several years out of date. Old games run on old hardware. They run on an on-board graphics card. They don’t chew up my hard-disk space. They’re a tenth of the price.
My music collection? It probably doesn’t include much that is dated post 2000. The library carries such great material as “Jukebox hits of 1957″ and “Billboard hits of 1976″. Notice that the passage of time has served as a wonderful and natural filter, since no one ever keeps track of all the bad or mediocre music from 1957. I know who’s good from these periods, because their names are the only ones which stick around. Good times!
I don’t miss out on any experiences; I just delay them a bit. Actually, my average experience tends to be better than that of a mainstream adopter. In a few years, for example, I will be buying second hand dvds at outrageously low prices: dvds dumped by mainstream adopters who are moving to the next great hi-def media format.
It’s the good life, I tell you.
P.S. Oh, and thanks for beta testing for me 
Filed in: tongueincheek.
Your comments in your FB rant about “The risks of digitizing detailed social information are relatively unexplored.” are quite true.
But isn’t there also a risk in blogging that your words will cause you regret? How do you plan to mitigate that? You can’t always live in fear about the possible reaction to one’s actions.
B.T.W. is this an anonymous blog?
No, it’s not an anonymous blog (my name is on the rant, after all). I don’t scream out my identity but trying to keep *real* internet anonymity is very difficult.
Oddly enough, the two concepts are related. The rant hints at the fact that on Facebook, you are tempted to act privately in public. Acting privately in a public context is what causes privacy breakdowns.
On Facebook, even when you realize this, it’s very difficult to do otherwise, because people will be hurt and disappointed when they find you refusing to install the application or have a wall or ….
When I post on a blog that is completely bare to the internet, that’s a powerful motivator to keep my posts *very* general. I also have to weigh (very carefully) the amount of controversy which I’m comfortable attaching to my name.