
The most disruptive technology of the last century was home appliances - davidiach
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/14/the-most-disruptive-technology-of-the-last-century-is-in-your-house/
======
jasode
Hans Rosling presented a similar topic at TED (2010):

[http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine?language=en)

On the other hand, we may overestimate the disruption of home appliances
because of how history played out. _Today_ , many poor villagers choose to
spend what little money they have on _a cellphone instead of a washing
machine._ They continue to wash clothes by hand and hang them to dry but they
absolutely need the cellphone to tell them what price their crops will sell
for at the market.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The article is about last century. Smartphones are _this_ century's invention.
However, both appliances and mobile tech only show how significant and
underestimated the effect of technology on society is. We like to think that
technology is just some weird addition or convenience, but it seems to me that
it is technological advancements that fundamentally transform society.

~~~
jasode
_> Smartphones are this century's invention._

If you notice, I had deliberately used the word " _cellphone_ " instead of "
_smartphone_ ". Cellphones (1980s) were 20th century technology. Many poor
villagers don't have smartphones but they do have cellphones.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Right. My misread, I apologize.

The reason I read 'smartphone' instead of 'cellphone' is that they're related
to an observation I find important - that smartphones are actually essential
tools for the poor. Internet access gives significant quality of life
improvements.

~~~
Retric
You could use the internet on a web on a phone in late 90's. The post 2000
smartphone was more an evolution than a specific capability.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_browser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_browser)

EX: BlackBerry 850 (1999) was very email centric.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You could, but the Internet in mid-to-late 90's was nothing like it looks
today. I still remember WAP browsers and this was not something useful for
general population in a way smartphones and the Internet of today are. Western
corporate businessmen did AFAIK had some use for it though.

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qrendel
It's incidental (for me) that this article should be posted today. Only two
days ago, in a philosophy class on environmental ethics, I was told by the
professor that my answer to a discussion prompt on "ecofeminism," which cited
the development of the washing machine as facilitating the women's rights
movement, would be disagreed with by feminists and that it reflected my
worldview that it was women's "essential role in life to do laundry." The
counterargument was that World War 2 had been responsible for women entering
the workforce and not household electrical appliances. My rebuttal that this
may not explain global demographic data from developing countries has thus far
gone unanswered.

Apologies for the personal anecdote, but needless to say I'm still a bit
offended at having been called a bigot. Particularly when Ana Swanson, a
"reporter for Wonkblog specializing in business, economics, data visualization
and China" would probably not have been similarly told that by writing this
article she believes housework is women's essential role in life. It seems
some would require extensive quantitative evidence for this claim to avoid
stepping on any toes, though, and I wonder if Hans Rosling, Ha-Joon Chang, Max
Roser and the others making it have quantified to what extent appliances were
an influence compared to other factors.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Personally I'm starting to believe in a limited form of something I heard
called 'technological determinism' \- that it's the technology that shapes
society. Your washing machine would be an example. Another would be seeing
civil rights movement as enabled by the printing press.

~~~
gearhart
Have you read Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media? Written in the 60s,
explaining world phenomena from the perspective of "media" (which he uses to
mean something very similar to "technology" \- roads and the printing press
both qualify) and accurately predicts the effect of the internet on society.
Dense, but very worth reading if you're interested in macro societal change.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I haven't. Thanks for the reference, I'll definitely read it!

------
TorKlingberg
What is strange to me is how the invention of home appliances seems to have
stopped. The refrigerator, washing machine, vacuum and dishwasher all made
huge changes to everyday life. But since the microwave oven, there has been
nothing major. We are still spending many hours on household work. Are the
remaining chores just to difficult to automate?

~~~
pkorzeniewski
It's funny that on the one hand we'll soon have something as advanced as self-
driving cars, and on the other we still need to iron our clothes, wipe off the
dust and take garbage manually :)

~~~
martin-adams
My take on it is that next level of disruption in the home requires a high
degree of AI or robots to work.

Ironing clothes has to cope with intricate clothing types and shapes. Wiping
dust has to navigate a space around obstacles (like a self driving car?).
Taking the bins out has to work with a hugely varying terrain - steps, doors,
gates, etc - unless you install something custom to the building.

That said, these solutions are the obvious way to automate the tasks we do
today. May be the disruption comes form clothes that don't need ironing,
spaces that don't collect dust.

~~~
hueving
Right, if you look at washers, dryers, and dish washers, it's not like they
automated the exact procedure that people performed to do the task. They used
a different method that was possible to automate.

~~~
madcaptenor
Similarly, early AI research tried to mimic how humans learn, and now we have
machine learning, which doesn't learn in the same way as humans do but is
still quite successful.

------
adwn
This reminds me of a film from 1960, "The Home Of The Future: Year 1999 A.D."
[1], where even more household chores are automated (for example, meals are
delivered and stored frozen, and take only seconds to heat up).

However, for some reason, the wife still stays at home (and goes shopping)
while the husband works and pays the bills. This made me think that the only
development which is harder to predict than technological progress, is
sociocultural progress.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRxqg4G-G4)

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anjc
Agh I wish people would either read some of Christensen's work, or even the
basic Wikipedia article, or else stop using the word 'disruptive' in this
context. It's diluting a concept which used to have a very specific meaning,
and has rapidly changed to mean nothing, through misuse.

This article starts off by almost calling people out, saying that people use
'disruptive' in the wrong way, but then it proceeds to make the same basic
errors.

There are a few key characteristics of a disruptive innovation. One is that
incumbents don't notice the changes due to market myopia. Were competitors to
the vacuum unaware of the technical leaps possible due to technology? I will
bet not. Another key characteristic is that it causes competitor value-
networks to change. What value network changed by vacuums being adopted? The
hitting-rug-with-stick value network? How much value flows through this
network? Did the sweeping brush value network change? No, everyone still has a
sweeping brush even now. All that happened was that consumer demands changed
and a new product was adopted. But wasn't it still an amazing leap in
technology? Yes! It was a 'radical innovation'!

"Disruptive" does not mean "big change". It doesn't mean "impressive". It
doesn't mean "unexpected competition". In this case, it doesn't mean "society
changed over the course of a century as a new industry was created due to
ancillary technological improvements".

It certainly doesn't mean "normal dynamics of industry and competition", which
is how most people seem to inexplicably use it.

------
dbuxton
I'd love to see a study of these tech adoption trends and their effect in an
even shorter timescale like in post-Soviet countries.

In Russia even a few years ago, all my friends' parents would obsessively
pickle the hell out of whatever they could grow. My impression is now that
that tradition has almost disappeared among the younger generations.

~~~
denis1
I'm from an East European country and can confirm that the pickle obsession
seems to be a lot less relevant for the newer generations. But I think the
cause for this is better access to western style supermarket chains and not
technological.

~~~
scott_karana
Supermarkets are enabled both by refrigeration and by trucking. How is that
not technological?

------
hudibras
There's a beautiful chapter ("The Sad Irons") in Robert Caro's first volume of
his Lyndon Johnson biography which describes life in rural Texas in the 1930s
before they got electricity. Because all the electric appliances existed
already, their world was transformed literally overnight when the switch was
flipped and the juice started flowing.

------
osullivj
Looking back it's amazing how little change there was through the twentieth
century in fundamental consumer tech. Radio, TV, record players, fridges,
washing machines & vacuum cleaners were all available in the 1930s. Sure, they
became cheaper and more widely available, but IMHO, not much changed in home
tech until the 1980s.

~~~
hueving
They may have existed in some form but that doesn't mean they were good,
widespread, or useful. It's like saying that since the first semiconductor was
invented, nothing has really changed in computing tech.

~~~
marincounty
With the exception of the '80 most of these items lasted longer, were easily
repairable, or made to be repaired.

As a child, when my parents bought an appliance it was a big deal, and that
appliance lasted. It was partially due to practical engineering, an emphasis
on longevity, and my father who refused to spend his hard earned money on a
new washing machine every two years. My father believed in 15 years durable
goods. And so due I. (Yes--that's a fragment Mr. Taylor.)

So appliances, I don't want your bells and whistles. I want an appliance that
lasts. I want a service manual attached to the gizmo, along with the warranty
information. I want an assurance of a few years of the availability of repair
parts.

I don't need, nor want to buy a new appliance every two years, but I know you
have built it into your business cycle by now. Some of us see through the
scam, and just aren't buying.

Everything I said here, goes for any new automobile(gas, alt fuel, electric),
but that might be a loosing fight? I can't believe how people buy automobiles.
They buy them like they will never break down?

~~~
rmc
Are you willing to pay significantly more for your home appliances?

~~~
JupiterMoon
_If_ I can get one with a 15-20 expected life then yes I'll pay 3-4x more for
it. I expect however an ~10 year guarantee and a firm promise that parts will
be available for a further 10 years (or if possible the full spec for parts is
published and new ones can be made from the spec.)

------
ll123
I think the most disruptive technology invented recently is effective birth
control.

~~~
rm999
Effective birth control isn't recent - it was a reasonably flourishing
industry and concept by the 1850s (including rubber and skin condoms).
American birth rates plummeted from 1800 to the mid 1800s because of this.

Modern innovations have certainly made birth control more convenient, but I
think the biggest changes have been social.

------
ulrikrasmussen
Also relevant: This[1] Nautilus article about how we have a tendency to over-
estimate the significance of new technology in the future, simply because it
is new.

[1] [http://nautil.us/issue/28/2050/why-futurism-has-a-
cultural-b...](http://nautil.us/issue/28/2050/why-futurism-has-a-cultural-
blindspot)

------
encoderer
What am I missing? The graph suggests only 1/3 of Americans had a water heater
as of 1985?

~~~
ghaff
Note that you don't need a discrete water heater to have hot water. I didn't
have one in my current house until I got a new furnace a few years back.

Multi-unit buildings may also have shared hot water heaters which may factor
into the numbers as well.

------
amelius
So many technological improvements, and we are still working 40+ hours per
week...

~~~
AnimalMuppet
We're working 40+ hours a week. That's at a job. But when we come home, we're
working less at home. That's still progress.

~~~
amelius
Well usually, one person was going to work, and the other person usually
worked at home (doing laundry, etc.) Nowadays, two people have to work to pay
the mortgage. Not really progress if you ask me.

------
varjag
One big non-appliance thing here is the proliferation of mobile phones. Am
pretty sure months of my productive life have been saved simply by excluding
waiting around on people and not making unnecessary trips.

------
JDDunn9
Chapter 4 of "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" echoed this
point titled, "The Washing Machine has Changed the World More than the
Internet Has". In addition to talking about how revolutionary household
appliances have been, he also mentioned how economists have consistently
failed to measure much economic value in the Internet.

------
pseudonom-
This thesis seems rather incomplete in light of:

[https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/w13985.html](https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/w13985.html)

[http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1975-07262-001](http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1975-07262-001)

------
jhallenworld
Where is the vibrator, the fifth home electrical appliance, on these graphs?
:-)

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/27/hysteria-
an...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/27/hysteria-and-the-long-
strange-history-of-the-vibrator-vertical.html)

------
jhallenworld
As an owner of an older home I find the evolution of central heating to be
fascinating. I highly recommend this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-Art-Steam-
Heating/dp/09743960...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-Art-Steam-
Heating/dp/0974396095)

------
scottmcdot
Why is the 'Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate' for women going down
again?

~~~
TorKlingberg
It could be lower US employment in general since the 2008 downturn.

------
t_fatus
Whant happens if you try to plot the relative improvement instead of absolute
reduction of working hours? Because it's much more difficult to kill the
remaining ones than the ones gained by the washing machine!

------
Rainymood
You know what has been one of the sickest revolutions ever?

Ballpoint pens.

Just let that sink in.

------
vonnik
AKA robots that replaced human labor.

~~~
anonbanker
sssshh. we're not supposed to talk about that.

