The idea of market diffusion has given me a lot of insight on myself and the world at large. It is a concept that I was somewhat familiar with thanks to either Jim Cornette or Eric Bischoff. I can’t remember which, but the idea is there are four groups in marketing. Those that will always be loyal, those that will use the product when it is good, those that will use the product when enough other people do, and then the finally group is those that will never use the product.
Market diffusion isn’t about marketing. It is how a new product, service, or technology enters a market. It adds a fifth group and loyalty has nothing to do with it. It has the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. You can see the connection. In the wrestling analogy you market to the second group. Market diffusion is more about how something becomes mainstream and the tipping point.
What is interesting is AI has crossed over the tipping point which is why it feels like it suddenly came out of nowhere. It has been spreading among the innovators and early adopters for several years now. Possibly even decades depending on where you classify Deep Blue and Watson or even earlier iterations.
Where we are now is a technology that feels on the verge of taking over the world and driving everything and that can be very scary to the people on the right of the spectrum. The ones that never asked for or wanted this, and the scariest thing about AI is it doesn’t need their permission. In just a few years it will be in our cars, phones, and computers without us even asking. Nvidia has a deal with Mercedes and Qualcomm with Toyota, and that isn’t the end of it.
The part that really confuses people on the right is that AI is as much science as it is a commercial product. People asking how it makes money might be asking the wrong question. No one asks how a cancer researcher at the University of Minnesota makes money. In fact both Open AI and Anthropic run on both fundraising and investments.
My saying people are thinking about this wrong could itself be wrong. I could be the one thinking about this the wrong way, and it all really is a fad that will fade to nothing sooner than later.
