All technology has a life cycle, or usage curve, from the time it is introduced and interated to it's obsolesence and re-invenion.
Although it's difficult to predict how an innovation will re-act before implementation, it's very helpful to atleast understand the curve.
An examples of this is Henry Ford's statement that he was building the Model T so that his workers could take weekend trips to enjoy nature. Who knows if Ford would have done anything different if he'd foreseen the ecological issues caused by the automobile.
See Diffussion of Innovation concept.
