“This Is Going to Change the World” (The Failure of the Segway)

> The curtain finally came up on the Segway personal transporter in December 2001, just under a year after the proposal leaked—when Kamen, in his jeans and work boots, went on Good Morning America. “It’s sort of like putting on a pair of magic sneakers,” he told Diane Sawyer. “You think forward, you go forward.”

To me, this marketing strategy is what killed the Segway. Every news station in my area described it as if it were controlled by human thoughts. I suppose you could argue that it's technically true, since your thoughts are what cause you to lean forward, but it's such a scummy sales tactic that I could never take it seriously after that.

That took me back a bit, I still remember the speculations about what IT was. I didn't knew (or didn't remember) that a leaked book chapter proposal was what had started it all.

I think the conclusion is spot on though, nowadays electric scooters are pretty much where Segway wanted to be (and I have to think this may have more to do with battery tech not being there at the time). And while we didn't completely rethink cities, one can argue the significant increase of bike lanes in some parts of the world had been fueled, at least a bit, by those newer electric "people movers".

Now we have electric unicycles, which seem 100x cooler than the Segway. But they also seem to take 100x longer to learn to ride and -- judging from YT videos -- they're 100x more likely to send you to the emergency room.

I still seem them around - our mall cops uses them.

it changed the world of private security in malls and universities indeed