Cassette Tapes in Diffusion Theory

Cassette Tapes, an innovation for affordable and quality audio, took over the world for several decades. Until they lost out to CDs, cassettes were the biggest wave of communication through music in the world. They were the first form of affordable audio to allow people the opportunity to bring music anywhere they wanted, completely revolutionizing communication. 

Like any invention, cassettes had to go through a pioneering stage, an early adapter stage, an early majority stage, a late adapters stage, and a laggards stage. These different stages collectively make up a theory of business called the Diffusion Theory. 

Diffusion Theory is a concept created to outline the timeline of a product's appeal and track participation from the buyer. This theory shows how a product begins, when it hits its tipping point, and when it starts to fall off the market. 

To stay on the market, companies like Apple create new products yearly, keeping them relevant in the public eye and re-entering them into the Bell Curve. However, cassette tapes followed the line of the curve and gradually fell off, like most other products. 

The first stage of the Diffusion Theory is the "Pioneers", or in other explanations of the model, the "Innovators". This is the experimental phase of any product's timeline. These people are the first to try the product and are often easy to appeal to. This group is very open to new ideas and trying new products. 

For cassette tapes, the pioneers were recording studios and major radio stations. Reel-to-reel cassettes were the first versions of the cassettes which were very large and expensive. As a result, they were only truly used by those two larger entities out of necessity for quality audio on a grand scale. 

The second stage of the Diffusion Theory is Early Adapters. This is the uptake phase of a product's timeline. The people that are a part of the Early Adapters phase are the people that are representing the opinions of the society on a product. The early adapters can make or break a product's chances of long term success. If the early adapters do not approve of a product, it will not make it in the market. 

When the first reversible cassette tapes were released in 1958, very few people adopted the product. These were mostly the version of cassettes that paved the way for newer versions of the technology later on, but few people actually bought them. Those that did catch on to this version, were the early adapters of cassettes. Their opinions on the product allowed for the newer versions in the following years. 

Following the Early Adapters Phase of the Diffusion Theory is the Early Majority Phase. This phase is the tipping point of a product's success in the market. This tipping point is the most success that a product will have in its time and individuals in the early majority phase tend to be followers who go along with trends. 

In 1962, Lou Ottens and the Phillips Company team created the first compact cassette, similar to the 1958 version. As this cassette hit the market, it entered the Early Majority Phase of the Diffusion Theory. The world became obsessed with cassettes, putting them into their tipping point in the market. 

Once a product begins its decline in the market, it comes to the Late Adopters Stage. This is the maturation of the product in the market. People that are late adopters to a product often are hesitant to change and wait until the majority have tried it before getting it themselves. 

The late adopters phase of cassettes was their resurgence in 2017 where people from newer generations began to try the product. This was the "hipsters" and nostalgics trying cassettes decades after their prime. The late adopters brought back a little bit of the glory of cassettes, giving them more time on the market. 

The last stage of the Diffusion Theory is the Laggards Stage. This stage of the theory is the Saturation Phase of the product in the market. People who are in the Laggards section of the theory are individuals that are against change. They will never adopt a product and will stay subject to tradition. Laggards are typically stubborn to their opinions of a product and will never sway in obtaining it.

Laggards in the world of cassette tapes were most likely people who stuck to using records and record players. Cassettes were a new wave that some people, like in any product, did not want to adopt, placing them into this category of the theory. 

As the Bell Curve falls, the product's use in the world declines steadily over time. However, no matter how long time goes on, a product's use in the world also never hits zero. There is a long tail to this model that shows this idea over time. This long tail are the few users of a product way outside of their prime. In fact, these people could be laggards for other products as they depend on the product they are devoted to. 

In the world of cassette tapes, this long tail can be represented by people that never switched to CD players. These Laggards for CDs are what lead to the long tail in the bell curve for cassettes.