Do early adopters raise barriers to the commercial take-up of strategic high-technology products?

The objective of this research is to investigate whether the behaviors and preferences of early adopters can potentially hinder the widespread proliferation of strategic high-technology industrial products. Through an extensive analysis of data collected from 1285 communication satellites, our findings reveal a significant pattern: when early adopters demonstrate a high demand for product diversity and elevated levels of innovation, this tends to delay the diffusion of these technologies to the mainstream commercial adopters. Early adopters undeniably play a pivotal role in directing the development pathways of strategic industries; however, their insistence on high innovation and diversity creates technological barriers. These barriers, in turn, slow down the mass adoption by commercial entities, which rely on more stable and universally accepted technologies. Our research enriches the existing body of diffusion literature by offering a fresh perspective, focusing on the dynamics of adopter orientation as opposed to the traditional producer-centric view. The results from our study highlight the urgent need for the implementation of targeted policy interventions and strategies aimed at fostering more equitable and widespread diffusion processes. This would ensure that the benefits of innovation are more evenly distributed across a broader range of user segments. Moreover, our findings suggest that innovation policies need to address systemic failures within the innovation ecosystem, such as the lack of a dominant design which can further facilitate diffusion. This insight is particularly beneficial for policy-makers, providing them with critical information to determine the optimal timing for transitioning from mission-oriented policies that are aimed at establishing new markets, to product diffusion policies focused on rectifying market failures.