The Fastest Tech in the West!

Technology uptake at quick-draw speed

You’ve probably seen mentions of how quickly a particular technology or product found public acceptance. Here, in roughly chronological order, is how quickly various consumer technologies were popularized.

All of the data is courtesy of Microsoft Copilot AI and Claude 3. Hallucinations are possible.

• Railroad travel — 50 to 60 years
• Automobiles — 30 to 40 years
• Airline travel — 40 to 50 years

• Radio — 15 to 20 years
• Telephone — 25 to 30 years
• Television — 25 to 30 years
• Color television — 10 years

• Personal computers — 20 years
• iPod — 5 to 7 years
• iPhone — 3 to 4 years
• Tesla Model 3 — a half million reservations in first year

• Amazon.com — 2 years from coming online to IPO, and still just a bookstore!
• Netflix DVD service — 3 years to 1 million subscribers
• Netflix streaming service — 10 years to 100 million subscribers
• Facebook — 1 year from opening up to the public to 50 million users
• Twitter — 4 years to 100 million users
• Instagram — 1.5 years to 50 million users
• TikTok — 2 years to one billion (with a B!) installs
• ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence chatbot — 1 week to 1 million users, 1 month to 100 million

Lessons learned: The pace of change is accelerating. Duh.