Aug 21, 2023·edited Aug 21, 2023Liked by Open Source Defense
This is exactly the problem the amateur radio community has encountered. Theirs is a community started by nerd types for fellow nerd types, and the bar to entry is correspondingly high: you have to pass an FCC exam that requires you to memorize arcane facts about how electronic circuits work in order to achieve a beginner-level license. Without the license, you can listen to other radio amateurs talk on the radio, but you are forbidden to broadcast. The amateur community has always been relatively small compared to, say, the automobile enthusiast community, but they had something going for them that other communities didn't: if you wanted to communicate without using the telephone or the postal service, they had the only real-time game going. Now with the advent of the Internet, virtually everyone has communications capabilities that put the most advanced amateur rigs to shame, and the ham radio community is literally dying of old age. Try to suggest that the bar to entry is too high, though, and you'll at best get half measures. They removed a former requirement that one be able to send and receive Morse code some time ago. They rearranged the license structure so the entry level wasn't quite as propeller-head nerdy as it was once upon a time. But by demanding at least some electrical engineering knowledge, they've overlooked the most important thing: getting people to communicate with each other using amateur radio. The killer app is the communication, not the engineering knowledge. I don't know if the community is incapable of grasping this, or if there is something else at work, but the spectrum is in danger of being seized by the FCC and auctioned off.
Good points. Adoption of innovation takes off when customers can see benefits easily and don't have to turn their lives upside down to take advantage.
One other thing that can work is making entry easy to understand. The gun community can be (in some ways) insular, guild-like, and jargon-strewn. Kind of like wine in that way...that was the key insight Yellow Tail had. They simplified the whole deal: common bottle for everything, simpler flavor profile easier for inexperienced wine drinkers to appreciate, and consistently acceptable quality (note I don't say Chateau Margaux quality) at an affordable (low-middle range for wines) price.
This is exactly the problem the amateur radio community has encountered. Theirs is a community started by nerd types for fellow nerd types, and the bar to entry is correspondingly high: you have to pass an FCC exam that requires you to memorize arcane facts about how electronic circuits work in order to achieve a beginner-level license. Without the license, you can listen to other radio amateurs talk on the radio, but you are forbidden to broadcast. The amateur community has always been relatively small compared to, say, the automobile enthusiast community, but they had something going for them that other communities didn't: if you wanted to communicate without using the telephone or the postal service, they had the only real-time game going. Now with the advent of the Internet, virtually everyone has communications capabilities that put the most advanced amateur rigs to shame, and the ham radio community is literally dying of old age. Try to suggest that the bar to entry is too high, though, and you'll at best get half measures. They removed a former requirement that one be able to send and receive Morse code some time ago. They rearranged the license structure so the entry level wasn't quite as propeller-head nerdy as it was once upon a time. But by demanding at least some electrical engineering knowledge, they've overlooked the most important thing: getting people to communicate with each other using amateur radio. The killer app is the communication, not the engineering knowledge. I don't know if the community is incapable of grasping this, or if there is something else at work, but the spectrum is in danger of being seized by the FCC and auctioned off.
Good points. Adoption of innovation takes off when customers can see benefits easily and don't have to turn their lives upside down to take advantage.
One other thing that can work is making entry easy to understand. The gun community can be (in some ways) insular, guild-like, and jargon-strewn. Kind of like wine in that way...that was the key insight Yellow Tail had. They simplified the whole deal: common bottle for everything, simpler flavor profile easier for inexperienced wine drinkers to appreciate, and consistently acceptable quality (note I don't say Chateau Margaux quality) at an affordable (low-middle range for wines) price.
I'm not sure that's true. Guns used to be much more mainstream back in the day, and I don't think they were simpler.