Ask HN: Are early adopters rich?

I would personally say the opposite is true for me. When I was in college (and poor, living paycheck to paycheck), I would try every new thing. Mp3? What's that? Let me download some. This thing has some kinks? No problem, I'll figure it out and post my findings on a newsgroup.<p>But now, as my income has gone up and my free time has gone down, I find myself doing less early adopting, and waiting a bit longer till all the college kids work out the kinks for me. Sure, I'm still an early adopter in the grand scheme of things (I dropped cable a few years ago for torrents, for example), but I'm definitely picking things up later in their lifespans than I used to.

I don't have anything better than my own anecdotal impressions, but it seems to me that early adopters tend to be smart, rather than rich. That said, most people I've known who were smart and not rich were also young. Most people I've known who were smart and responsible eventually started to accumulate money. So, even if an early adopter isn't rich now, chances are they will get there in time.

I haven't had cable since the early 90s. I got frustrated at how annoying it was to set up service with them when I'd be paying $1000+ a year to them. So I gave up trying to make it easy for them to take my money and just never signed up up when I moved. I don't miss it, and I wish all the companies involved doom and gloom.

Despite what you might hear if you make more than 60k USD a year you are fairly well off.<p>For the US take your salary divide by 50k and say "I make X times the average household income in the USA."

In <i>general</i>, I would say that "early adopters" are not necessarily rich so much as flush with disposable income.<p>This is actually a weird case, because usually being an early adopter requires a financial outlay to purchase some product that provides some sort of superior service of some kind. In this case, we see people with the early adopter mindset but trying to save money who are instead giving up some convenient service (at least, cable with DVR is convenient) for a cheaper alternative that is now merely "good enough". Because I've done it, and while I'm slowly putting the pieces back together as the world catches up with me, I have definitely sacrificed some things. I'm not getting superior service here, I'm cobbling together bits and pieces.<p>Still, we are getting there. Sports was a big hole but I just watched $MY_COLLEGE_TEAM's last game of the year online in HD over the Internet. That's progress vs. even just three months ago. Cord cutting is getting easier and easier.

No. But they have fun!<p>An acquaintance bought one of the first Compaq computers. He paid $4000 for it. He kept it in his office and would tell people: "When that computer came out, had I instead bought $4000 of stock in Compaq, I would be much wealthier today. Instead I bought the computer, learned to program it and did OK."

Not really, but I would imagine they are generally male, with a college degree and extreme tech proficiency.

I think there is some correlation between early adopters and how rich they are.<p>I would definitely buy more early products if I was rich just because I have the financial backing to withstand the risk that an early product has. E.g. I'm waiting to buy the iPad now in hopes of a better iPad version coming out soon. But if money was no issue, I would buy the iPad now and the new version when it comes out.<p>But of course, there are some people that would be early adopters despite not being rich. It's just that the statistics of how rich early adopters are would be skewed by the newly rich being more willing to take more risk and spend their money on untried products.

I don't think early adopters are necessarily rich. I think they set aside a portion of their income for early technology exploration in the same way some might for vacations or clothes.

I don't think cord-cutters qualify as early adopters anymore. With Hulu's paid offering and Netflix, cable is pretty much useless. At this point people who still have cable are mostly hidebound or sports aficionados.<p>Well, that and they have too many functional analog TVs. That's the only reason I haven't switched my parents off is that we'd need Boxee boxes or similar, and they haven't quite come down in price to the point where I'd rather not just buy a laptop and pretend it's a TV.

Sorting out the wealthy vs. non-wealthy is difficult. Way too many factors to consider. It's probably safer to say that early adopters are more willing to spend their money on technology/gadgets/service but it's not directly tied to income. If you can put aside maybe $2-3K/year you can be a prolific early adopter these days. It's confusing though in the context of cord-cutters because they're doing it to <i>save</i> money. Cable TV is just way too expensive.

Most college students I know these days who live in their own place (About 65% of the student population around here) don't have cable. This is because most are apt enough at using the Internet, that they can find all shows for free. Some use Hulu and the like, while others torrent, but maybe one in ten actually pay for cable.

You say are not rich, but you even though you like tech. you might not be an early adoptor either.<p>If you didn't have an iPhone or twitter account by 2007 or don't have accounts on lots of now failed startups from the day they got techcrunched, you're not an early adoptor.<p>I know I'm not particularly an early adoptor, most of my users are.

1. Early adopters of ideas is not the same as early adopters of gadgets &#38; services<p>2. That said, some new gadgets &#38; services are stand-ins for others which are more expensive or less accessible<p>3. Except for #1 and #2, Yes, early adopters are male white privilege

Cable free for the last year or so. I just could not keep paying 100$/mo+ on principal. Now it's just internet and netflix, obviously.

Not really. But they surely want to save some money on their Cable.

I think it largely depends on the value proposition of the service.

you're wrong, they all rich! rich! richer than astronauts!!!