Late Adopters Send Message to Tech Industry

Netscape Navigator is still the browser of choice for 0.14% of Internet users, which doesn’t sound like a lot, until you realize that’s over a million people. They, and other late adopters like them, are becoming a rare breed in today’s world of automatic updates, but they play a key role for the tech industry they spurn, the New York Times reports.

“Laggards have a bad rap,” explains one Silicon Valley prognosticator, but “innovation requires the push of early adopters and the pull of laypeople asking whether something really works.” To win over this cautious breed, companies need impressive upgrades that drastically improve functionality. Of course, even that won’t win over the most ardent laggards. “I am not rational about these things,” admitted one CompuServe user.  (More technology stories.)