Ubiquity

In Kyle’s Historical Futurism - Research notes, ubiquity is one of the two properties that determine whether an invention persists — the other being Incentives. These are “the only two concepts Kyle keeps coming back to for why an invention persists.” The test is a thought experiment: what would it take for Coca-Cola to disappear? Something massive, because it is ubiquitous — and the same goes for Google, Apple, Band-Aids, and Kleenex. Their pervasiveness makes them durable and therefore predictable.

The flip side is that technologies that have not yet achieved ubiquity are hard to forecast. Google Glass, Pelotons, and VR are named as examples that resist prediction precisely because they have not become woven into everyday life. The concept thus serves as a filter for Forecasting: what is ubiquitous is safe to extrapolate; what is not is speculative.

Where this appears

• Historical Futurism - Research — ubiquity paired with Incentives as the two reasons inventions persist; ubiquitous things (Coca-Cola, Google, Band-Aids) are durable and predictable, non-ubiquitous ones (Google Glass, VR) are not