Why didn't the Segway revolutionize the way we walk around?

[691175002]

There are a lot of obvious reasons why Segway failed as a product; I find the story of the company to be more interesting.  The people working on and investing in the Segway genuinely believed they had a revolutionary product.

[Bud]

Every other project on Kickstarter says their product is revolutionary. Nothing new with that.

[T3sl4co1l]

For me, what's far more sad than the market failure of the Segway is the failure of its cousin device, the iBOT, an electric wheelchair that could go from a regular 4-wheel mode to an upright 2-wheel balancing mode, allowing the occupant to be near eye level with standing people, as well as climb stairs. It really gave its users substantially more independence than traditional electric wheelchairs. But because insurers and/or medicaid wouldn't pay for it (it didn't even cost more, but was an unknown factor, whereas traditional electric wheelchairs were established tech), so sales were weak and the manufacturer folded a few years later. But wiki says that regulatory changes may allow it to come back, and Toyota is apparently showing interest in relaunching it. It'd be a huge boon for many wheelchair-bound people.

What this really means is, a megacorp (like Toyota) bought it up, or at least likes the idea enough to copy it, and lobby for that regulatory change.  Likewise: the small corp didn't think to lobby for a change, or didn't have the capital to push it through.

Tim

[tooki]

For me, what's far more sad than the market failure of the Segway is the failure of its cousin device, the iBOT, an electric wheelchair that could go from a regular 4-wheel mode to an upright 2-wheel balancing mode, allowing the occupant to be near eye level with standing people, as well as climb stairs. It really gave its users substantially more independence than traditional electric wheelchairs. But because insurers and/or medicaid wouldn't pay for it (it didn't even cost more, but was an unknown factor, whereas traditional electric wheelchairs were established tech), so sales were weak and the manufacturer folded a few years later. But wiki says that regulatory changes may allow it to come back, and Toyota is apparently showing interest in relaunching it. It'd be a huge boon for many wheelchair-bound people.

What this really means is, a megacorp (like Toyota) bought it up, or at least likes the idea enough to copy it, and lobby for that regulatory change.  Likewise: the small corp didn't think to lobby for a change, or didn't have the capital to push it through.

Tim

Maybe, but the regulatory changes happened 2 years before Toyota expressing interest.

[Alex Eisenhut]

But I've seen a lot of these



Even this once in a while

[tszaboo]

I usually dont post GIFs, because they are annoying. But: