Proponents of some new technology, confident in its superiority to existing alternatives, are often dismayed when other people do not share their enthusiasm. But people’s resistance to novel and nominally superior technology need not be based on ignorance or irrationality. A technology’s valence or normative character depends not only on the context in which it is deployed, but also the vantage point from which its impacts are evaluated: what is a boon from one person’s perspective can be a liability from another
