In hindsight, waves might appear smooth and inevitable. But there is an almost infinite array of small, local, and often arbitrary factors that affect a technology’s trajectory. Indeed, no one should imagine diffusion is easy. It can be costly, slow, and risky, or require wrenching changes in behavior feasible over only decades or lifetimes. It has to fight existing interests, established knowledge, and those who jealously hold both. Fear and suspicion of anything new and different are endemic. Everyone from guilds of skilled craftsmen to suspicious monarchs has reason to push back. Luddites,
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Inevitable, Not Easy: Technology’s Rugged Diffusion
