Like most people, sometimes I happen to read two unrelated things in succession and thereby draw unexpected conclusions.

Dan Cullum recently posted the widely accepted reason for the relative lack of success of the Segway:

The Segway is a great piece of technology. When it was announced, it was meant to change the way humanity moved.

The problem was the Segway wasn’t designed to handle stairs.

And stairs, well, they’re everywhere.

And then Andrew Mueller’s breathless excitement at Paris banning e-scooters:

E-scooters were always an answer to a question that presumably nobody had asked: “What would be an efficient way of making life for pedestrians miserable at best, dangerous at worst?” They have been a blight upon every city on which they have descended. In use, they are a nuisance and a menace. When stationary, they’re ugly and obstructive litter.

By declaring a stop to this nonsense, Paris has set what will hopefully be a resonant example.

Segways and e-scooters are driving at the same goal: moving pedestrians more quickly with less effort. The latter was leagues more successful than the former, yet didn’t solve the alleged ’killer problem’. You can’t ride an e-scooter upstairs, either.

It reminded me not to take the commonly accepted explanation for an enterprise’s failure at face value. It’s probably a lot more complicated than it seems.

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.