Improbable Insights

Nathan Edwards, once an editor at Maximum PC, put up a tweet recently that almost read like a Zen koan: "*buys a thing* this is great, now i'll be happy [six months later] all my things are making me sad *gets rid of things* i need new things" It's possible Nathan was talking about consumerism in general, but that's about an apt a description of the early adopter cycle as I've ever seen. Eric Klein and I use Nathan's bit of Twitter poetry to discuss the joys and pitfalls of being an early adopter. Meaning What drives early adopters to participate in an endless upgrade loop? For example, I'm eyeing a new DSLR, even though my current digital camera is excellent. When a new GPU technology arrives, I'm often first in line to upgrade to a new graphics card. Early adopters adopt based on what they're passionate about. They often buy into new tech early, for the sake of exploring the tech. It's partly about knowledge and exploration, but there's certainly something deeper in the early adopter psyche that drives t