Culture. The Japanese invented firearms years before Europeans. ^[141] But their culture saw the sword as a symbol of their values: craftsmanship, honor, and respect. Despite the advantages of using firearms, the innovation was ignored and seen as a disgraceful way to kill (a sentiment echoed by the Jedi in Star Wars films). The best technology is only one view of innovation—how the innovation fits in a culture's values is often stronger. For example, imagine a device in the U.S. that gave you telepathy at work but required making lunch out of your neighbor's dog or being naked in public, two taboos of American culture. Innovations do change societies, but they must first gain acceptance by aligning with existing values.

Dominant design. The QWERTY keyboard came along for the ride with the first typewriter. When Christopher Sholes created this layout, he didn't imagine millions of people using it—he just needed a design that wouldn't jam his mechanical keys. But once typewriters succeeded, the first computer designers wanted to ease people's transitions to their creations, so they copied the typewriter design. Many dominant designs achieve popularity on the back of another innovation. Better designs might follow, but to gain acceptance, they must improve on that dominant idea by a sufficient margin to justify the costs of the switch (e.g., re-learning how to type). The more dominant the design, the more expensive those costs are (e.g., try innovating, or unifying, the shape of electric plugs around the world).

Inheritance and tradition. The U.S. rejection of the metric system is tied to tradition: America already knew the English system, so why learn another? (See "Space, metrics, and Thomas Jefferson," later in this chapter.) Some people confuse their comfort for a belief with it actually being good; therefore, inherited ideas (including the evils of bigotry, ignorance, and urban legends) are often protected by the very people they hurt in the name of honoring the beliefs of their parents and the past. This is a specific cultural factor.

Politics: who benefits? There's often little malice in political workings—people are simply acting in self-interest. In any situation, just ask: who benefits if we choose X, and who benefits if we choose Y? You can predict how people in power will respond to any new idea if you first calculate its impact on them. The interests of those in power influenced the adoption, or rejection, of every innovation in history. Hunger, war, and poverty are tough problems, but it's in someone's interest for those problems to continue. Any innovation aimed at solving those problems must consider politics for it to succeed.

Economics. Innovation is expensive: will the costs of changing to the new thing be worth it? Everyone might agree that an innovation is better in the abstract, but the financing required might be impossible or the risks unreasonable. Dominant designs (see above) are expensive to replace. Often there is only time or money for innovating in one area; other innovations are rejected, not on their merits, but on their value to the priorities of the moment.

Goodness is subjective. Get three people in a room and you'll get five definitions of goodness (see Chapter 10). Fireplaces, mentioned earlier, are popular because of how they look more so than how they function. Consumer differences in values, tastes, and opinions are rarely explored until after an innovation has been proposed, or even built, leaving innovators with creations the public does not want. Smart innovators study their customers, mastering their needs early enough that those factors can be useful. The often-used Beta vs. VHS example fits: a key factor in the success of VHS was tape length (three hours, enough for a feature film, to Beta's one hour), which was more important to consumers than Beta's superior video quality. ^[142]

Short-term vs. long-term thinking. One part of goodness is time: how long does this innovation need to be used for? Many superior ideas are rejected by societies interested in cheaper, shorter-term gains. In the 1930s, major cities in the U.S. had public transportation—trolleys and tram systems modeled on successful designs from Europe. But in the rush of the 1950s, and the thrill of automotive power, those streetcars were removed and replaced with new lanes for cars. Today, many cities regret these changes and approximate trolleys with new light-rail systems. The goodness of ideas changes depending on how far into the future their impact is considered.