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If you try to apply the it to something more narrow you run into the problem that many specific technologies come in and out of favor depending on market conditions.
Peter Norvig is wrong. He claims that "Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double again (in any number of months)," but the raw foodism reached 100% penetration millions of years ago, fell off sharply after the discovery of fire, and has doubled several times in the past couple of decades.
I know a few people that carry two cell phones... It's a technicality but you can have more than 100% market penetration. Does that count? "Luxembourg racked up 158 mobile subscriptions per 100 people, closely followed by Lithuania (127) and Italy (122)." Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7116599.stm
To be clear, it all depends on what you count. If you're counting units sold, you can double your count by selling everyone 1 unit, then 2, then 4, etc. (In Finland I understand that cell phone usage is above 1 per capita, but still growing.) If you're counting the total number of households that own the product, you can double your count by doubling the population, or by convincing everyone to divorce and become two households. But if you're counting percentage of people (or households), there's just no more doubling after you pass 50%.
I know a few people that carry two cell phones... It's a technicality but you can have more than 100% market penetration. Does that count? "Luxembourg racked up 158 mobile subscriptions per 100 people, closely followed by Lithuania (127) and Italy (122)." Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7116599.stm
The article's not that long! Here's the second half: To be clear, it all depends on what you count. If you're counting units sold, you can double your count by selling everyone 1 unit, then 2, then 4, etc. (In Finland I understand that cell phone usage is above 1 per capita, but still growing.) If you're counting the total number of households that own the product, you can double your count by doubling the population…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article's not that long! Here's the second half: To be clear, it all depends on what you count. If you're counting units sold, you can double your count by selling everyone 1 unit, then 2, then 4, etc. (In Finland I understand that cell phone usage is above 1 per capita, but still growing.) If you're counting the total number of households that own the product, you can double your count by doubling the population…
Right, I actually did read that far. I'm just trying to illustrate unless he defines it in a way the excludes cases like that, I'm not sure you can call it a law...a generalization with exceptions, maybe. As his law is written, the cell phone example kinda disproves it. I think the problem is that paragraph you quoted can't easily be reduced to language that fits in that blue box. Just playing devil's advocate...
Without going down the route of identifying a new market, once more than 50% of the population in question has had its needs met, that market is mature -- its growth has reached a point of inflection, and no amount of pushing on the part of the existing industry will make the product continue to change lives at the rate it used to. The opportunity that was there has already been identified and seized.
Now, if everyone in Finland has a personal cell phone, and another 25% also keep a separate cell phone for business use, it's suddenly worth redefining what the market is. Should the industry try to double market penetration of business-only cell phones, now? Why isn't one phone enough, and could a new product meet these separate needs better? Or alternately, some people keep two phones with different plans, and switch between them to keep the total bill down -- breaking that confusopoly is another business opportunity worth identifying, but tracking units/plans sold instead of actual market penetration by population will mask it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on the unit that is doubling. From how I read the claim, Peter Norvig is using penetration percentage as such unit. Once you reach 50%, doubling means 100%, which is very unlikely since it is almost certain that somewhere in the world there is someone that does not use certain technology (meaning writing, clothing, radio, cellphones or whatever...). In short: the claim is just a clever joke :)
Yes, we got the joke. But suppose in 50 years we come up with a cool technology that is so good it drives cell phone penetration down to 1% (ie young people growing up then never buy cell phones). Then cell phones can make a comeback and double to 2%. And double again to 4%, etc.
The latent Apple analogy is making me uncomfortable now, so I'll stop here.