When is it Good to be the First?
- When it is a monumental/historical achievement, a la lunar landing.
- When you are a company releasing a new/improved product.
- In sports stats/records.
- If your life depends on it, such as escaping a structure fire.
- In sex. (just use your imagination with this one).
When is it not good to be the first? In almost every other scenario. Particularly as a consumer. You don’t want to be the first to buy something. Whether is it a rocking chair or a computer, there are a few things you can always count on by being the first, you’ll pay more for it and you’ll get to discover its limitations, shortcomings, bugs, etc.
All I can do is chuckle at the millions of people who were so damn pleased with themselves for camping out to get the new iPhone or rushing to Apple’s website to upgrade their existing iPhone only to end up with a brick. Seems that being the first didn’t turn out to be the best plan there either. On behalf of those of us who have common sense (or business sense) I’d like to sincerely thank all of you “bleeding edgers” for finding the bugs in the OS upgrade and the shortcomings of Apple’s servers. Mr. Barnum said it best, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”