Income vs Consumption and Technology Adoption Curves
Today’s New York Times has an interesting op-ed piece comparing income versus consumption in the US. It’s a good read, and had a fascinating chart.
What it shows it that when you look at consumption, the gap between rich and poor is not nearly as large as when you look at income. In other words, rich people have way more money but don’t spend it all. There are lots of ways you could interpret this data, and I’m not going to wade into all the social policy implications here.
The interesting thing for me was the chart showing the adoption of various technologies as a percentage of households over the past century or so. Mobile phones outstripped the Internet in terms of speed of adoption.
I also thought that it was interesting what happened during the Great Depression.
Households were actually disconnecting from electricity and telephones, getting rid of their cars, and making a million other sacrifices. Amid all that, radio adoption powered through without any interruption in the adoption curve. I think that’s fascinating.
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