How Time has Shown the Failure of Past Technological Innovations

In this paper I will argue that throughout history, innovations in technology have not succeeded based only on the merits of their utility. Rather, it is often the ability of this new technology to relate to society that drives such successes. To examine the history of technology, one must recognize that factors such as the economic state of the time period can play a part in the result. In fact, in many cases mere utility has done very little to guarantee the acceptance of a new technology.

One striking example of such a scenario is that of the advent of the domestic refrigerator, which is detailed in Ruth Schwartz Cowan's More Work for Mother. In short, it quickly became obvious that there were two different technologies, both of which, for all purposes, worked equally as well. Yet in the end, most everyone in the world has a compression refrigerator; at the same time, a vast majority of society has never even heard of the alternative technology, absorption machines. Why did compression technology "win" to such an extent that absorption technology seems to many people like the subject of a science fiction novel? It is not because the compression technology was superior to that of absorption. In fact, some would argue that the absorption machines are more beneficial than the compression ones, because they make almost no noise and require less maintenance in most cases.

Essentially, compression technology is standard today because of the business climate of the period in which domestic refrigerators became popular. Compression refrigerators are electrically powered, while absorption machines are gas-powered. At the time, the firms entering the production of domestic refrigerators included General Electric, Westinghouse, and General Motors. These firms had two things in common: they were well-capitalized, and they chose to produce the compression refrigerator. Their reasons for this varied, but no doubt part of it was that General Electric saw not only the opportunity to sell the machines, but to earn profits by selling the electricity to power the machines. The companies that sided with absorption technology, such as SORCO and Servil, never stood a chance against the large companies. Eventually they ran out of money and disappeared, just like the gas-powered refrigerator.

It is fascinating that these corporations were in essence able to change history with their choice of the refrigerator technology that they pursued. Cowan notes other battles of technology that were "won" by seemingly inferior, or at least equal, technology. Included in this category are portable vacuum cleaners over central vacuuming systems in homes and municipal trash-collecting over domestic incinerators. In both of these cases it was not eminently clear which technology was superior, but one flourished while the other vanished. In the vacuum cleaner's case, it was better marketing by Hoover of the portable machine that tipped the scale, but it was most definitely not superior technology. Just think: if Hoover had chosen to back the central vacuuming system technology and had marketed it successfully, would today's homes come standard with such a feature?

Large corporations are not the only things that dictate whether a new technology will be successful. Many times, that decision has essentially gone to public opinion. One example is the video cassette recorder (VCR) versus the Betamax technology in the late 1970s and early 19980s. Both allowed for home viewing of movies, something that had not really been available before. The Betamax, developed and marketed by Sony Corporation, was seen as the superior technology. Although it has now been replaced by DVD technology, the VCR became the standard technology, and Betamax is a fading memory in most people's minds.

The reason for this, as given by Dr. David Munns, authority on such matters, is that Sony kept the production of all Betamax movies in-house, and early on made the decision not to produce any pornographic Betamax movies. The result was that people who wanted to watch pornography at home (which was apparently a great number) bought VCRs. Eventually, no one was buying Betamax and the technology died. Note that the Betamax technology was thought of as the better technology. Say what you will about the deterioration of American morals and whatnot, but the VCR technology succeeded because people wanted the ability to watch pornographic movies in their homes, not because it represented an improvement over the alternative technology.

A sort of parallel to the refrigerator technology and the home video technology is the development of automobiles in urban settings. This occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, and the principals involved were electric vehicles, which would be run as mass transit and cab services, and internal combustion engines, which were mainly for private ownership by individuals. Electric vehicle technology generally ran cleaner with less emissions and more reliable engines. On the other hand, internal combustion offered consumers the chance to own their own vehicle. The major players in the electric vehicle technology decided early on that individual citizens were not fit to own their own cars, let alone drive them. A system of trolleys, buses, and cabs was devised for the purpose of transporting passengers into and around major cities, the first being New York. The electric vehicles were a monumental flop. Today most Americans own their own cars, with internal combustion engines, and traffic is a problem in every major city. Could things have been different if electric vehicles had become the norm? Probably.

It is therefore important to examine why the internal combustion engine succeeded. Was it a better technology? Some would say yes, or at least concede that internal combustion technology was further along than its electric counterpart. In genera, however, it is not clear that the internal combustion engine was so superior to electric vehicle technology. As David A. Kirsch wrote in The Electric Vehicle Company, while the founders of the Electric Vehicle Company had grand plans, they had not considered the logistics of implementing the plans. Indeed, while the forerunners of these "electric cobwebs" of mass transit in the cities were beginning to implement their plan, the technology was not quite ready. Range on vehicles was minimal and the production output could not meet the needs. At first, it was extremely difficult to even find an electric cab that was available, because the manufacturers were unable to meet demand.

Maybe a larger reason for the failure of electric vehicles was the public perception that had been created and reinforced by the manufacturers of internal combustion machines, that of the electric vehicle as "womanly." Psychologically, this no doubt had an effect on the public. Adding to this was the fact that one had to be driven around while in an electric vehicle, but if one were to purchase an internal combustion car, only the size of the gas tank could limit what could be done with it. Certainly this reinforced the "manliness" of internal combustion technology and the absence of manliness in electric vehicles.

Kirsch seems to think that the single largest issue that plagued the electric technology was the inability to own one privately. For with the advent of the automobile came the spreading out of citizens. Once this widening of society begun, it seemed impossible to stop. Suburbs sprang up miles from the city, and this was not a problem because people were able to own automobiles that enabled them to travel longer distances to and from work or business in the cities. When Whitney, Pope, Meade, and the rest of the Electric Vehicle Company decided that electric vehicles were only to be publicly owned, it marked the end of practically any chance that the technology had. Besides the practical aspects of needing charging stations and the imperfect technology (not that internal combustion technology was, or is, perfect), when people were told they were not permitted to own electric vehicles, they simply turned to the other technology and never looked back.

So the saga of internal combustion's triumph over electric technology is therefore not marked by an absolute superiority of one technology over the other, but of the influence of social aspects, such as urban sprawl, individualism and the need for personal possessions, dictating the history of automobile technology on the final decision.

It is difficult to imagine how different life today would be if in fact electric vehicles had taken root as the preferred mode of transportation while in cities. Maybe if the founders of the Electric Vehicle Company had decided one hundred years ago to pursue a scenario in which it was practical for individuals to own electric vehicles, the result would have been completely different.

As Donald Reid put it in Paris Sewers and Sewermen, "we must remember that technical discourses often have their greatest success in the public sphere when suitably clothed and shod in categories like the aesthetic, the moral, and the civilized in which citizens can recognize themselves and their social aspirations." In the case of the electric vehicle, the social aspirations that internal combustion technology allowed citizens to recognize were that of independence (by owning their own vehicles) and the need to accumulate as much property as possible. Electric vehicle technology could not offer people the chance to achieve these aspirations, and summarily failed.

I have merely illustrated three conflicts between the technologies, but I think it is clear that the driving force that separated the smashing successes from the three failures was hardly the utility of such technologies. In many cases, a better technology will beat out an inferior one, but the better technology must conform to the criteria laid down by Donald Reid in order to have a chance. I will close with a quote by Dr. David Munns: "If you invent something no one has a use for, chances are no one will be using it."

Works Cited

Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave.

Kirsch, David A. The Electric Vehicle Company: The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History.

Munns, David. HIST 285: The History of Technology. Lecture Series. Fall 2003.