1. path dependence
&
technological
momentum
JUS 494
arizona state university
professor: merlyna lim

2. This week......
Path dependence
Technological momentum
then...a look at two old ‘tools’ in a new way
consider ‘complimentary technologies and
‘technological interdependence’
consider...what is one problem related to
‘complimentary technologies’?

3. Why do we have the arrangement
of keys on the keyboard (for
computers) that we have today?
Why?
QWERTY UIOP[
ASDFG HJKL;
ZXCVB NM,./
Why not?
 QWERTY KLMNO PQRST
ABCDE VWX;
FGHIJ YZ,./
Why not?
AEIOU Y

4. picture of typewriter

6. Why do we have the keyboard we
have today?
 QWERTY keyboard for computers
 People were already familiar with typing that way.
 A product of technological decisions of the past
 The technological decisions of today affect technological
decisions of tomorrow
 What do we call this?
 Path Dependence

7. Technological momentum
What is an example of technological momentum?
Many times we have the opportunity/choice to
change technology, but we choose the same
technology anyway.
Built into our biases or interests
eg. If diesel fuel company was a big sponsor for
the community chest (sponsor for sporting
events), we might not want to change to LPG
because of interests (for reasons other than the
technology or other than pollution)

8. Another example
windows 98, do we have to choose it?
If we buy a new PC we do
because microsoft makes so many of the products
(compatibility). Their large market share limits our
choices to some extent.
You might not even take a free operating system if it is
offered to you because of the chance it may not work
the same with your MS-Word or Powerpoint
your choices related to internet browsers may become
limited in the future for similar reasons of money/
power/influence/bias rather than the effectiveness of
the technology