Video calls have been with us for a while. Except, they were rarely used. IME, people sometimes had Skype calls with relatives abroad and that's about it. And then, COVID happened. Suddenly, Zoom skyrocketed, with Google Meet not far behind. The reason is obvious.
Now, the time of lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings is over, the incentives to do video calls are (AFAICT) more or less the same as pre-COVID, and yet video calls persist. They became a completely routine way of doing business meetings, academic seminars and occasional social events. Why? AFAICT it's just the initial adoption barrier: once everyone did lots of video calls, and realized they are actually pretty convenient, they just kept using them.
So, here's a fun question: What other things are like video calls in the pre-COVID era? That is, the technology exists (more or less: maybe the UX needs some trivial improvements), the use-cases exist, only nobody uses it just because they're unaware or because it's not a "normal" thing everyone does. Given something to create initial adoption (like COVID did for video calls), everyone would start using it and never go back.
I think electric bikes are a pretty good candidate! I own one and it was transformative for biking around Seattle.
On reflection, I think my reason for thinking they are not quite comparable to zoom is the following:
E-bikes can be two things: a replacement for a car or bus, or a replacement for a manual bike. As a car/bus replacement, there is a clear tradeoff: they are a whole extra vehicle you must purchase, they are less safe, they are slower in many cases. As a bike replacement, there is also a tradeoff: they are more expensive than many manual bikes, they are very heavy, they become much worse than a manual bike if the battery dies, and they may at least be perceived as riskier or having fewer health benefits.
If I ask a bike-user or a car-user "why don't you use an e-bike for the things an e-bike is perfect for," I expect that a lot of them would refuse not on "it would be weird" grounds, but on "I don't need to do that enough to justify the expense" grounds, or on "I don't like the tradeoffs of replacing my car or my bike with an e-bike." In fact, I think that would be the main objection.
Zoom, since it costs no money and slots in for little-no money with established ways of having meetings, truly offers a straight-up value add while requiring virtually no extra investment to start using it. And yet people weren't doing it! Which is the crazy part!
However, I like the proposal and I think it's pushing the conversation in the direction I want it to go, so I am going to say this motivates a $3 donation to AMF. Proposals that fit my criterion even better can earn the other $7.