How consumers’ risk-related perceptions and attitudes evolved as a high-risk/reward technology market emerged–the Internet of Things

• Consumer perceptions shifted to favor purchase intention despite persistent risk. • Coolness perceptions plateaued but continue to offset risk perceptions. • Risk knowledge grew but now favors purchase intention rather than deterring it. • Risk influences purchase intention more now, even for those with lower concern. • Consumers relieved risk anxiety with increased self-belief to rationalize intent. We examine the evolution of risk-related purchase intention dynamics over a high-growth period of consumer market emergence for IoT devices (2019–2023) with implications for other high-risk/reward emerging technology consumer markets. Through longitudinal analysis we find the counteracting effects of device riskiness and coolness continue to offset each other as expected but the net effect is that purchase intention has increased during the period studied, even as coolness perceptions of the same devices plateaued. Consumers now better recognize the usefulness of IoT capabilities and that those capabilities matter (though their “IoT-ness” appears less salient now as the capabilities themselves appear the greater focus). But more interestingly, consumers now perceive more self-knowledge of IoT risk generally and yet, that factor’s former negative influence on purchase intention has dissipated. And this is so even while device-specific riskiness has become even more negatively salient, and now, also for those with lower security concern. The interplay of these risk-related factors has evolved with consumers now believing themselves better able to assess risk and thus more confident and comfortable navigating specific devices’ risk/reward trade-offs. Given the overall increase in actual IoT risk reported over the same period, however, it appears more likely that consumer beliefs have changed in response to the inherent extreme cognitive dissonance involved.