Product adoption used to have a long run-up. It took 100 years for flush toilets to reach 90 percent of the U.S. population.
For the automobile, MorningBrew calculated from a Dec. 31, 2019, chart by Our World in Data the 90 percent mark was hit in 74 years. The telephone itself took 66 years to land in 90 percent or more of U.S. households. Electrical power required 50 years to hit the threshold. Business and household computer ownership required just 27 years to penetrate 90 percent of the U.S.
Introduced by Eric Jay Toll for the PHXNewsroom
From OurWorldInData.com by Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser
The landline telephone connection passed the 90 percent mark after 69 years, but in 2019, its market penetration dropped from its 95 percent peak in 2003 to 41 percent in 2019, just 16 years later.
The smartphone jumped from 10 percent market penetration to 90 percent in under 10 years.
OurWorldInData.com tracks technology adoption from 1860 to 2019, and the data are just fascinating as to how quickly technology penetrates the market.
Researchers Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser write, based in the United Kingdom, “This visualization details the rates of diffusion and adoption of a range of technologies in the United States, measured as the percentage of US households with access or adoption over time. Specific definitions of what constitutes ‘adoption’ or ‘diffusion’ of each technology can be found in the ‘Sources’ tab of the chart.
“We were pointed to the relevant sources by Horace Dediu, who documents, blogs and analyses technological change over time. We have tracked down all of his original sources and assembled our dataset based on these original sources.”
Image caption: Still image from interactive chart at Our World In Data showing the length of time from introduction to the market to 90 percent market penetration and current market penetration. Source: Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2019) - "Technology Adoption". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/technology-adoption'
