“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford.

Just a note that this quote, and a similar one by Steve Jobs (‘Market research could never have given us the Macintosh’) are amongst the most misinterpreted in history. Most people see them as saying ‘market research is useless’ - what both were actually saying is that you need to take a new innovation to the customer and _then_ ask them what they think of it.

So no, don’t just flat out ask people what they want - but intuit and give people a little taste of what they could have - and then ask them what they think.

What people think say and do are 3 mostly unrelated things. so yes it really fits into whole life really.

Also horses that could run at 100mph for 5 hours at a time would be far better than early cars. They run on clean renewable fuel, have built in natural intelligence to avoid crashes and carry drunk drivers, and come in a variety of pleasing colors (not just black!).

The main benefit of cars was that if you delay maintenance your transportation doesn’t die.

The emissions weren't so pleasant, however!

> The emissions weren't so pleasant, however!

Do you mean from cars or horses? If the former, early automobiles were far cleaner than the animals they replaced (and still are). Cities faced huge issues with animal excrement and cars represented a cleaner alternative.

Obviously you can't do such a simplistic direct comparison between horse emissions and car emissions. How does leaded petrol play into this comparison, particulates, etc.

You're totally right, my comment was far too simplistic. However it captures the feelings at the time, cars at that time were far "cleaner" in that they smelled a lot better, did not clog streets with excrement etc

Obviously play the car out a few decades and the emissions were _not_ so clean.

But you do get self replication. Try wrapping your head around that feature.

By the time any consumer product offers self replication as a feature, would anyone even remember what smartphones were?

Have people not seen any sci fi with self replicating mechanicals? It never goes well. Humans wouldn't be around for very long to remember anything at all.

There will always be room for some horses.

Do you mean 10 mph?

There’s still a market for faster horses.

There's still a market for buggy whips too.

No VC firm is investing millions expecting a 100x return in buggy whip startups though.

No, but if you need a buggy whip, they are available in sufficient quantity relative to demand.