On an unrelated notion, the Henry Ford quote about customers wanting, “a faster horse” reminded me of a fun phenomenon I’ve just begun looking at. Once horses were no longer used for transportation, people *eventually* came to value horses differently. I like the idea that we may discover new maning in things AFTER they’ve been made obsolete by new technology.

The resurgence in popularity of DIY projects, vinyl records, and even snail-mail greeting cards and letters, for example. A recent piece on NPR said that much of this cannot be written off as simply ‘boomer nostalgia’, and that young people have been finding new value in a few things despite those things being replaced by something far more efficient.

As a very passionate Icelandic horse owner, I’m grateful that the centuries-old breeding programs which nearly vanished thanks to the automobile, re-emerged in an entirely new context. I realize this has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding product featuritis, but I’ll take any excuse to talk about horses ; )

So, a wonderful post on several levels.