To Predict The Future Of Technology, Figure Out How People Will Use It Illegally

All technology owes just as much of it’s success to unintended uses as it does to the intended uses. In many cases even more so.

VHS beat Betamax, not because it was a superior technology but because it was willing to partner with the porn industry, where Sony (the owners of Betamax) didn’t.

Or just look at the internet itself. 

New technologies don’t exist in a vacuum: they interact with both technological and non-technological systems as well as a variety of human wants and needs. This allows for the emergence of surprising combinations of goals and uses, many of which may be completely outside of the expectations of the designers. In short, as the patron saint of futurism William Gibson once said, “the street finds its own uses for things.”