But people generally don't know what they want. Just yesterday I talked with my mom about how in j2me times I worked to set up sync'd calendars, mails, notes, etc. Back then people told me no one needs it. Nowadays everyone is used to exactly that and loves it.
> Who would weigh themselves down with a high cost phone in your pocket when there's one on the wall?
This was correct. People aren't carrying their high-cost phones everywhere because they want to make telephone calls. They're just called "phones" by coincidence.
People carried actual phones with them long before smartphones existed.
There were carphones which required a big box in the trunk. There were cellphones that did nothing but make calls. It wasn't until much later that mobile phones started doing anything but making phone calls.
> Who would weigh themselves down with a high cost phone in your pocket when there's one on the wall?
Anyone who sits in a place waiting. Put a phone a smartphone in their hands where they can look up the thing they're thinking about (or anything else on the net that they can access). Instant comprehension.
> Who needs a website showing pictures of goldfish when you can interact on a bulletin board?
Ask anyone to imagine what the bulletin board looks like in a geographical location far away. Then enter a URL for that far away location and receive the response in seconds (vs days of travel). Instant comprehension.
> Hard to predict which technologies get adopted.
That's true. For the two examples I gave above, there are many more where respondents instantly recognized the benefit but the technology still didn't take off.
However, that's beside the point. The point is-- what is the moment of "instant comprehension" for all of someone's appliances phoning home to a third party?
Edit: just to add another example. Someone does an hour commute to and from work. Put them in a self-driving vehicle. Now they potentially have two extra hours of concentration they can devote to something other than the road. Even if they're fearful of using it in the automated drive demo-- instant comprehension.
I don't think the instant comprehension comes until hindsight. I don't know what the killer app will be for the home OS (or even if there will be one) but history will make it look like a logical step that was inevitable. It's hindsight bias.
For the first two examples I gave I remember seeing an early adopter do exactly what I described and it was instant comprehension for me. Again-- it doesn't mean I knew those technologies would take off, that they'd be important, or even that I was excited about them. But it did mean I at least understood one glaringly obvious potential if they happened to take off.
Also, the third example does not yet exist as a common vehicle so I cannot have hindsight bias. But again, glaringly obvious that reading a book instead of staring at the road for an hour would be an enormous gain in productivity and agency for lots of people.
Or even take a failed futurism-- If I had a jet pack I could quickly fly on a whim to the beach and have a picnic. Instant comprehension.
What's the cool thing I get to do that I currently cannot if my household appliances all send streams of sensor data to a third party?
That he shouldn't be inventing all this stuff? Why not?
As the article says, he's ahead of the curve. The next generation will consider all this stuff normal, and just the way the world works.
But if we didn't have people making stuff just because they wanted it, nothing would ever happen.