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Scooter this, buddy.
Back when the Segway HT--a/k/a "Ginger" and "IT," the two-wheeled scooterish thing--was first revealed, I found myself defending it against a lot of people making incessant, often ill-informed jokes and derisive comments. It reached a point of high irritation, I think, because so many of my friends and acquaintances are sf/fantasy fans who often tend to be more starry-eyed than I, yet when something real came along, by and large they weren't willing to even give it the benefit of the doubt.
Well, poking around a bit just now led me to two articles about the Segway from Dan Bricklin. The opening paragraph of the first article, written before Bricklin had gotten to use a Segway hands on, begins:
Make sure you understand disruptive technologies. Their first incarnations often seem like toys compared to existing technologies. The Segway embodies lots of disruptive technologies. I'm pretty familiar with a previous one: The combination of electronic spreadsheet and the personal computer. The combination was first viewed as a toy compared to "real" computers and financial forecasting tools. It only sold about 10,000 copies in the first 10 months and was barely mentioned in the business press for a couple of years.
Bricklin is understating things a bit when he says he's pretty familiar with spreadsheets--he wrote VisiCalc. If you're interested in the Segway, whether as fan, skeptic or just someone who likes to think about the future, read both of Dan's articles.
Problems with the link...
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Just finished the articles...
If one were given to me, would I take it? Sure.
At my current state, would I rather spend $2000 on a Segway, or on a top-of-the-line bicycle? Definitely the bike.
In my opinion, the Segway might lead to other things -- especially as its range improves -- but it, itself, is not that impressive yet. For example, I can see it as a very safe 'camera crane': use the handlebars to indicate moving up and down. I can see other uses for that kind of 'stable platform', especially in rescue work. But I'm not yet impressed by Segway itself.
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And yeah, I'm frustrated about the Segway, too. I think Kamen has himself and the public image he crafted to blame, in part, and I don't know if a short-range personal vehicle was the way to go with this. I would've been much happier to see a two-person vehicle with some storage space and weather shielding. But it's sure as hell a better idea than a city jammed with SUVs on the morning commute, most of them with precisely one occupant. A lot of my hopes rested on that little scooter.
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There's another practical commercial reality in doing it this way, now that I think about it--if you come up with something that directly competes with the automobile, you get the automobile industry lined up against you. Historically speaking, a true startup (as opposed to new market entrants backed by established conglomerates, like Kia or Hyundai) would be better off going into the ring with Microsoft than trying to take on Ford and GM out of the gate.
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Disruptive technology...
From what I've seen, though, the hype building up to the Segway seemed to be along the lines of "Something's coming out that will completely change the way we live." And now that it's here, people are finding that, not only hasn't it completely changed much of anything, but that the Segway, as it stands, just doesn't have much potential to actually change anything. Don't get me wrong--I read (well, closer to skimmed) the articles, and I can see the potental that they ascribed to it; however, I think there's some pie in the sky involved, too.
The detractors, by and large, I think, bought very deeply into the "change" message, but, because there was no timescale involved, expected the change to happen immediately. What they got was something in the very early stages, that per se had little potential of effecting an actual, current change. It may shape how things develop decades from now, but, as it is, it really is more of a toy than a tool.
I think, too, that the hype contained a measure of hubris. For all that the Segway may be able to change design philosophy and such for the future, it has to survive first. The biggest obstacle that I see in its way is that, in order for it to be able to effect change, it first has to get enough buy-in in order to become a design factor at all. Unlike spreadsheets, which only shaped the way we used one tool (the computer), the Segway makes the claim of being able to change a large portion of today's lifestyle. The changes involved are bigger, and people are going to want to be sure that the technology in question is actually a factor before designing to it. If the Segway remains an expensive toy, designing around it becomes silly. In addition, it's possible that some new technology might come in that in some way supersedes the Segway and makes it obsolete before it ever actually becomes a factor. If someone ten years up the road manages to develop practical teleportation technology (yeah, right...but you never know! ;)), the Segway becomes more of a curiosity. By announcing ahead of time that the Segway was going to be a "disruptive technology," the designers put expectations on people that they failed to meet--if only, I think, because they didn't specify the full scope of those expectations. If they inadvertently built it up too high, too soon, it may fall under its own weight. Or maybe not.
In short, though, I think people were taking a more personal/selfish (pick the term that fits better with your philosophy of it) view--not "how will Segway revolutionize society two generations down the road?" but "how in tarnation does this expensive contraption benefit me right now?" And I think a lot of people are more interested in spending that much money to get some sort of tangible benefit (a laptop, down payment on a car, remodel the living room) than to invest in a future that won't necessarily come to be.
Re: Disruptive technology...
"How will this benefit me right now" isn't the question the current iteration seems to be designed to answer. It's like asking how owning an airport rental luggage cart will benefit you. Unless you're buying it for an airport, it won't. That may seem like a silly example when talking about "disruptive" technologies--but it was pretty disruptive if you were a porter. (I wonder if the reason those "SmartCartes" haven't made it into hotels is because hotel bellhops are unionized.) Segway is, like SmartCarte, concentrating on corporate vertical markets for now.
Common criticisms of the Segway HT seem to often be "it's not radical enough" and "they won't modify cities to accommodate these things." Aren't those two criticisms looking at it from opposite angles, though? They'd have to modify cities to specifically accommodate them if they were too radical.
If they can fit in to planning for both bikes and pedestrians, though, we're talking about changes as simple as making walking paths and sidewalks a little bigger, or putting in more bike lanes (like I've seen in some new construction around here, where there are bike trails to the side of the road). Things that make cities "Segway friendly" make them more friendly to all forms of personal transportation, instead of cities designed around cars. This is already the trend in city planning.
If another more consumer-oriented iteration of the Segway HT has a price under $2000, I think we really will see them popping up in cities. Not in huge flocks--just early adopters, first (look at buyers of the current iterations of "eco-friendly cars")--but they'll be there.
Re: Disruptive technology...
I agree with you that "How will this benefit me right now" isn't the question that the current release is designed to answer; the problem is that that's the question a lot of the detractors want it to. They're saying, "Disruptive technology? Pfeh, I'm not disrupted." They were expecting *poof* and the world changes--and there was no *poof*. It's not designed to foment an immediate revolution, though; it's the first step in a longer road, and people are more fixed on the ultimate destination than on the road that's between here and that destination.
I think the "not radical enough" and "won't modify cities" critiques are actually complementary: the idea is that, if they were truly radical enough (whatever that means quantitatively), that cities would restructure themselves to allow people to take maximum advantage of the Segway. The reality is, though, that the redesign envisioned is a gradual one.
I think a lot of people are expecting a this as a disruptive technology, gradual or not, to become a permeating one--to have cities and lifestyles designed around the Segway in the way that they're now designed around the car. The block that some are seeing is that the two designs are, to an extent, incompatible, and they don't see people giving up the tried-and-tested car for this newcomer that has several perceived disadvantages (some of which are related to the current car mentality and are more differences than disadvantages).
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In the novel I'm working on, I have my ideas of what transportation might be like--there's a certain "Segway influence," although so far we haven't seen single-person transports.
As far as I know, inventor Dean Kamen doesn't own a private island and army, no. :)
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I should probably read up on the Segway concept, which I'll probably do after writing this. In a sci-fi novella I'm reading at the moment gasoline has been banned for some time, so everyone walks, rides or takes trains. There's horse carriages, and electrical cars too. The solar buggies aren't highly refined, though, going the max of 20MPH, but for reasons not explained yet the humans have been genetically altered to have an abnormally long life span. Taking an hour to get to work might not seem so bad if your lifespan is a projected four hundred years.
Though this isn't to discourage you from implementing the ideas of different transportation methods yourself. It's actually refreshing to have the world re-explained instead of relying on the readers schemas on such. :)