How ‘Early Adopters’ Think

See the guy down the street who drives a 2016 car, wears an Apple watch and just pre-ordered the new iPad Pro?

They’re ready to spend a fortune buying the very latest on the day it comes out, even though it will drop hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in a very short time. And they don’t care whether all the bugs are worked out, or that the next version will be cheaper — and better.

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These consumers are called early adopters. It’s a fancy name for people whose zeal to own the latest tech can override common sense and, in extreme cases, drive them straight into bankruptcy. Let’s face it, the cutting edge is an expensive place to be.

​What motivates these early adopters? As London-based Ruben de Dios said: “I buy new tech because I think it would be either helpful or fun​. It​’s​ not always that way, but is a risk I am willing to take, so I can enjoy it and learn about it and then use it before everyone else​.”​​

Years ago, the consumer electronics industry had an epic battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, with companies offering up players and movies in one format, but never both. Rational people saw the conflict and waited to see which format would “win.”

Not the early adopters. Some picked the technologically superior alternative, and they ended up with egg on their faces and obsolete HD-DVD players.  In the 1980s, their predecessors chose sides in the Betamax vs. VHS battle, assuming the superior tech would win out. It didn’t. When Sony tried to corner the market on Beta, vendors moved to the open-source VHS.

The cutting edge is an expensive place to be.

A few years ago, as 3D technology became a sneaky way for movie theaters to pull more money out of the viewing public, TV manufacturers like Samsung, Sony and LG started selling 3D sets. The early adopters plunked their money down while most consumers sat on their hands. The problem? Turns out people didn’t really want 3D television, and there wasn’t much compelling 3D programming anyway.

Those worst-case scenarios don’t bother early adopters.

“If I think a tech won’t be around in a year, I’m actually more excited about getting it while I can,” Chicago-based Ian Smithdahl said. “I really enjoy Google Glass, for example. I didn’t think it would be a success, and that made me want it all the more.​

“Masochist, I guess,” he said wryly. ​​

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Zoom forward to 2015, and the latest cutting edge technology in the consumer electronics space is 4K television. Four times the resolution of an HDTV! What the companies aren’t telling you, however, is that there’s almost zero content available at that resolution.

Netflix has a dozen or so programs and movies, if you pay for the 4K stream, and Amazon Video has another half-dozen or so, most of which are rather expensive to view. And, well, there’s nothing else. Turns out that those fancy Blu-ray players can’t deal with 4K content, and no broadcast TV or cable is in 4K as of yet. (For the record, not much is even broadcast in widely available 1080p — most networks, even in HD, only put out 720p).

Which leaves the early adopters of 4K televisions scratching their heads, wondering how to demonstrate to their friends the technological superiority of the newest units. It’ll change, and more 4K content will become available if the sales are there to justify it. In the meantime, they’re just underutilized HD TVs dreaming of higher bandwidth content.

Early adopters don’t always leap first and check their credit card statements later. De Dios said he’s waiting on UltraHD 4K television “until there is more content available on 4k and ​I​nternet connections are better, because I will be under-using it.​”

Smithdahl agreed.

​​​”I don’t have a 4K TV yet, though. And I don’t imagine I will anytime soon .​.. ​Don’t really care about the resolution of my TV​,” Smithdahl said.

Seems some early adopters are wising up to the ways of modern technology sales.