Things tend to run along multiple parallel streams, with all being present at all times. Then there's an apparent sudden switch and people are amazed, but it was running along parallel lines for ages first - the fifteen-year overnight sensation phenomenon. c.f. the rise of Linux; it's been waiting in the wings for ages, but then Microsoft spectacularly screwed the pooch with Vista and it's way gaining word of mouth publicity.
So I'd pick only things that are clearly happening now, change the popularity and see what sort of world that looks like.
c.f. this, wherein the generic non-techie consumer clearly doesn't have to understand any of the mechanisms to understand the most important thing about DRM: why it sucks.
Note also that a process that is 10x or 100x its previous popularity or rate is no longer the same process, at all. Photoshop taking 30 seconds to run a filter instead of 50 minutes is a whole new world. A 486 was much, much more than a faster 8088. If you'd told me in early 2004 that Wikipedia would be top 10 by the end of 2006, I'd have looked at you funny.
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Date: 2007-07-14 08:14 am (UTC)Things tend to run along multiple parallel streams, with all being present at all times. Then there's an apparent sudden switch and people are amazed, but it was running along parallel lines for ages first - the fifteen-year overnight sensation phenomenon. c.f. the rise of Linux; it's been waiting in the wings for ages, but then Microsoft spectacularly screwed the pooch with Vista and it's way gaining word of mouth publicity.
So I'd pick only things that are clearly happening now, change the popularity and see what sort of world that looks like.
c.f. this, wherein the generic non-techie consumer clearly doesn't have to understand any of the mechanisms to understand the most important thing about DRM: why it sucks.
Note also that a process that is 10x or 100x its previous popularity or rate is no longer the same process, at all. Photoshop taking 30 seconds to run a filter instead of 50 minutes is a whole new world. A 486 was much, much more than a faster 8088. If you'd told me in early 2004 that Wikipedia would be top 10 by the end of 2006, I'd have looked at you funny.