Thank the rich, tech’s guinea pigs

Two events involving attempts to regularise human travel took place in June. The first one, the Titan submersive vessel taking people down deep underwater to view old shipwrecks, ended in horrific tragedy with all five of its passengers crushed to death in submarine darkness. The second one was a thumbs up – Virgin Galactic‘s rocket plane Unity completing its first commercial flight in (suborbital) space, paving the way to have another platform for commercial space travel. There have been grumbles – even perverse humour in the case of the ill-fated Titan – that these are things only for rich folks. At a possible $450,000 a ticket for Unity, and $250,000 that the unfortunate passengers paid for a seat on Titan to view the Titanic, it is for the wealthy.

But the rich have always been guinea pigs for technological advancements. Remember the clunky super-expensive cellular phones of the 1980s, with their exorbitant calling fees? If the rich hadn’t bought their ‘status toy’, the mobile would not have been ubiquitous today. The same goes with early plane travel, affordable only to the ‘jet set’. It was the rich who could afford the early, expensive tech. They literally funded affordable versions for the future. So, let’s give the rich a tip of our cap. By their ability to spend and flaunt, we reap benefits somewhere, somewhen down the line.