In this edition:
[INSIGHT] Why outdated tech can still be a growth lever
[SIGNAL] The Gen Z demand driving analog comebacks
[IDEAS] Two business models built on digital nostalgia
[THEORY] The real meaning of “early adopters” in 2025
At Bangkok airport, near Gate 21, there’s a payphone.
Yes — an actual payphone.
I don’t know if anyone still uses it, but it made me stop for a second. Technology doesn’t become obsolete all at once. It fades — slowly, unevenly, geographically.
What’s “dead” in one market might still be alive in another. And in that gap, there’s always room for business.
Main Story — The Geography of Obsolescence
Innovation doesn’t travel evenly.
Somewhere, the future is already here — and elsewhere, the past still works just fine.
Take M-Pesa in Kenya.
When the West was celebrating the iPhone, Kenya was running its economy through text messages.
No apps. No smartphones. Just SIM cards and GSM.
In 2025, M-Pesa still moves over 40% of the country’s GDP.
Not because it’s high-tech, but because it’s perfectly matched to its context.
That’s the secret of business timing:
Obsolescence is not an end — it’s a shift in location.
Insight:
When a technology stops growing in one market, it doesn’t die — it just becomes exportable.
So maybe “innovation” is not only about inventing new things.
It’s also about relocating what still works.
Signal — The Comeback of Old Tech
Feature phones are back.
In 2024, global sales of “dumb phones” rose 5%, led by Gen Z and minimalists who want fewer notifications and more focus.
Companies like Light Phone and Nokia HMD are betting on the “distraction-free device” trend.Disposable cameras are trending again.
Apps like Dispo and Lapse turned analog nostalgia into digital scarcity: you shoot photos but can only see them hours later.
It’s a deliberate slowdown — and it’s working. Kodak reported +34% film sales in 2024.
Old tech isn’t dying — it’s being reframed.
Business Ideas — Where Obsolescence Becomes Opportunity
1️⃣ Retro Tech Rentals
A platform that rents old technology as new experiences: typewriters, Polaroids, rotary phones, MiniDV cameras.
It’s nostalgia meets sustainability meets aesthetics.
Use it for photoshoots, film props, pop-ups — or “digital detox” retreats.
2️⃣ Digital Recycling Studio
A micro-lab that finds underused digital tools or open-source software and repackages them for new markets.
Think: repurposing old productivity apps into low-bandwidth SaaS for rural schools, or converting deprecated APIs into teaching platforms.
Innovation through recombination, not invention.
🧠 Theory Snippet — The Diffusion Gap is a Map, Not a Curve
In 1962, Everett Rogers mapped how new ideas spread — innovators → early adopters → early majority → laggards.
But here’s what most people forget:
those groups don’t just exist over time — they coexist in different places.
In 2025, “laggards” aren’t slow — they’re just operating in different conditions.
That means every “obsolete” product sits somewhere on that curve waiting to be rediscovered, reframed, or relocated.
If you know where the lag is, you know where the leverage is.