Immature Technology

Joshua Gans urges tech companies not to chase after only after teens:

That is because the overwhelming picture of the teenager as a consumer is of a person that is going to change. Teenagers are doing things that they did not do as children and that they will not do as adults. Thus, as a consumer, they are transitory and not in a good way. Unlike childhood demand where there will always be other children to consume toys such as Lego, the next wave of teenagers will engage in their behavior using the next available technology (or fashion). And since there have been teenagers that technology has been changing.

This notion of the transient consumer implies something very strong: business exclusively built on teenager demand will lose their customers. This is as true of musicians (which is why we will soon be free of Bieber) as it is of technology (remember the Sidekick) and social networks (consider MySpace). This suggests that businesses that have become the darling of teenagers should make hay while the sun shines or, and this is the tricky part, work out how to broaden their customer base to include adults. Either way, worrying about teenager demand is futile.