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Segway needed early adopters to drive the price down, but couldn't get early adopters in part because nobody wanted to be the first person seen riding a Segway to work.

Speeding up intra-city commuting without having to walk or ride a bike obviously would be awesome. When people pointed this out back when the Segway came out even the fattest nerds were saying they were being lazy, but the truth is most technology helps people be lazy, so it seems to me the dork factor played a huge role in preventing early adoption.




3000 dollars (the price of a used car)

a range which meant you were going to need to schlep it into your apartment/office to charge every day

taking up an incompressible 2-3 persons worth of space in an elevator/hallway/sidewalk/cubicle

no parking infrastructure

little/no ability to navigate grass and probably highly recommended not to drive off a curb

no extra carrying capacity

plus extra speed is either useless on a crowded sidewalk or makes you a giant dick on a crowded sidewalk and also useless if you're with some one who doesn't have that speed.

... so that you could walk a little less.

It was not a compelling product.




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