A new innovation that has caught my attention recently is that of block-chain technology and its use in new forms of digital currency. I learned about this new monetary method through some friends at work who have invested a decent amount of money in these types of technology. I currently see myself at the following Stage of Adoption and anticipate I will end up within the following Adopter Category:
- Persuasion
- Early Majority
My Stage of Adoption has not reached Confirmation yet because of how difficult the concepts behind block-chain technology can be as well as how volatile and ever changing the market seems to be around different types of digital currency, not to even mention how potential government interventions might affect it all. I do feel that I will reach the Confirmation stage eventually, I just need more time to process and understand how it all functions.
Now I mentioned that I consider myself in the Early Majority stage of this adoption process (though I realize I have not reached the Implementation or Confirmation stage which is where you would actually label what adopter category you are in). I say that I am in the Early Majority category because that is where I envision the technology will be in the diffusion process when I finally make the jump.
I am your typical Early Majority adopter in most cases. The following reasons are why I believe I am this way:
- I like to do research and understand something thoroughly before I invest time or money
- I want to see how the technology works out for others, typically let them take the risk
- I am a firm believer in peer reviews
- I like to give a new technology time to break or work out any bugs before I buy in
Other technology examples I have adopted in the Early Majority stage are the original iPhone, AirPods, and most tech that is fit into a vehicle such as auto start or navigation.
An example of when I fell into a different category is with most gaming consoles, typically PlayStations. I would consider myself in the Late Majority category. This is mostly due to monetary concerns as well as knowing the console I currently had worked just fine. The new features provided by the new consoles typically do not make me feel like there is enough of a difference to justify the prices.
I also am an almost compulsive early adopter. I’ve been working with computer tech since the late ’70’s and my adoption rate has only be slowed by my income-cost ratio of the tech. I’ve slowed in some areas, such as computer equipment because it finally became obvious being cutting edge on hardware left me waiting for the software that would actually use my resources, so I’ve slowed down to staying a generation or two back on the hardware, and have yet to have any problems with software. So I guess that worked out well for me.
As to block-chain, I was introduced to the concept with the invention of Bitcoin. A friend was explaining to me there was a way to let my computer make money for me while I was doing other things, and it caught my attention. Hey, free money, who wouldn’t go for that? I was in somewhere around 2010 or so. I left it running in the background and quit thinking about it. At the time I started it was worth about six cents. The last I knew I had a bitcoin wallet worth a little over $72. While upgrading my computers that hard drive got replaced, and was sitting in a box somewhere with all my other old equipment. I had long since stopped mining because it was using too much of my computer resources, and I wasn’t about to spend the money to build a GPU array. Many years later, in an exercise to reduce clutter and because I had moved to entirely SSD, I went through and did military-grade wipes on the hard drives, then destroyed them. Back in those years I was on the dark web and learning hacking. While I’m not aware that I specifically broke any laws because it was never my intent to do so, I was worried that I may have done so regardless of intent (for example, I had ventured upon Silk Road, although never making any sort of transactions, it was unbelievable what you could find), so when I destroyed those hard drives, I was thorough. By the time I thought of bitcoin again, I realized that anything I’d had was on one of those drives and was gone. At that time I realized I’m managed to lose myself what would have been a few thousand dollars if I’d still had it. Ooops. Life went on and I never thought about it again until it came to my attention for breaking the $10k mark. As you may understand, with the prices lately, I actively avoid thinking about it. So while I still can and do ride the edge of developing technology, I stay away from block-chain. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sit in a corner and think about what might have been and try to forget all about block-chain all over again…..