My life & career
Ask whether a technology improves with the passage of time or with practice, usage and scale. Those are different paths.
YOTTABIT / THE BIG STORIES / Foundations
What if the breakthrough isn't more power—but a collapse in cost?
We often watch what new technology can do. Equally important is what it costs. A capability can remain limited to elite laboratories or enormous corporations until its price falls far enough to change who can use it.
THE BIG PICTURE
Think of the moment advanced analysis becomes inexpensive enough for a small company, a classroom or an individual. The competitive advantage shifts. It may no longer be having access to the tool; it becomes knowing what problem to solve with it.
Falling cost is an opportunity, not a guarantee of adoption. Trust, skills, regulation and useful applications still matter.
THE YOTTABIT PERSPECTIVE
What does it mean to me?
Big change is fascinating. Its implications are what matter.
My business
If production volume drives learning, adoption itself can change the economics of your business case.
My industry
Supply chains, regulation, manufacturing and cumulative experience can determine whether theoretical progress becomes affordable reality.
FROM JIM CARROLL’S WORK
Jim’s innovation framework repeatedly warns against relying on static cost assumptions while new technologies scale.
Meet the futurist behind YottaBit ↗WHAT COULD I DO MONDAY MORNING?
Identify the learning mechanism behind one technology bet: better chips, more manufacturing experience, or improved algorithms?
CURIOUS FOR MORE?
Explore the story behind the story.
For those who want the deeper explanation, the research is always available. The fascinating possibilities are only the beginning.
Research, explanations and sources EXPLORE THE DETAILS +
Different descriptions of progress
Moore’s Law began as an observation about integrated-circuit component density and economics. Wright’s Law describes how cost can decline as cumulative production increases. They are related ways to observe progress, but they do not make identical predictions. Cumulative volume, production learning, and technological redesign can make costs fall without requiring the same gains from ever-shrinking chip features.
The compounding effect of deployment
Solar generation, batteries and industrial equipment demonstrate why economics can change when production knowledge accumulates. But learning rates are specific to a technology and to the definition of cost being measured. A battery-cell price is not a fully installed grid-storage project cost; a solar module price is not the complete delivered cost of reliable electricity.
The real lesson
Instead of asking whether a technology “follows Moore’s Law,” ask which component has improved, what drives the improvement, whether volume remains able to grow, and what constraint could interrupt the trend. A credible index preserves units, dates and methods rather than combining unlike price measures into a single dramatic graph.