Experts Said Americans Would Never Do These 15 Things. Americans Did All 15 Things.

There is a long and distinguished tradition in this country of very smart people looking at an emerging technology or cultural shift and declaring, with full professional confidence, that Americans simply will not stand for it. These experts cite consumer psychology, market research, cultural precedent, and the general stubbornness of the American character.

And then Americans do the thing. Every time. Without fail.

We have collected fifteen of the most spectacular instances of this phenomenon. Pour yourself a glass of water from the $4 bottle you just bought at the airport and enjoy.

1. Paying for Bottled Water

The Expert Take: As recently as the early 1990s, industry analysts and consumer researchers repeatedly noted that Americans would never pay for something that came free from the tap. A 1987 beverage industry report described the bottled water market as "a novelty segment with no meaningful long-term growth trajectory among mainstream consumers."

The Update: The United States is the largest bottled water market on Earth. Americans spent approximately $19.5 billion on bottled water in 2021. We do not want to talk about it.

2. Talking to a Speaker on the Kitchen Counter

The Expert Take: When Amazon introduced the Echo in 2014, a wave of consumer behavior analysts predicted the product would flop with mainstream audiences. "Americans are not going to stand in their kitchen and talk to a cylinder," one technology commentator wrote. "The social awkwardness barrier alone is insurmountable."

The Update: Over 35% of American adults now own a smart speaker. The cylinder won. The cylinder always wins.

3. Banking on a Computer

The Expert Take: When online banking began rolling out in the mid-1990s, the banking industry's own research divisions were skeptical. A widely-cited 1995 study suggested that American consumers would never trust a computer with sensitive financial transactions, citing fears about security, complexity, and a fundamental preference for human tellers.

The Update: Roughly 80% of Americans use online or mobile banking today. Many people under 40 have never set foot in a bank branch. The tellers are fine, but we're not going to see them.

4. Watching Television on a Phone

The Expert Take: Mobile video was declared dead on arrival by multiple analysts in the early 2000s. "The screen is too small, the data costs are too high, and Americans watch television in their living rooms," a 2003 media industry report concluded. "Mobile video is a solution in search of a problem."

The Update: Americans now watch an average of over an hour of video content on their smartphones every single day. We watch TV in bed, in line at the DMV, and, let's be honest, in the bathroom. The living room is just where we go when we want a bigger screen to also ignore.

5. Renting a Stranger's Couch Instead of a Hotel Room

The Expert Take: When Airbnb launched in 2008, the hospitality industry was not worried. Hotel executives and travel analysts dismissed the concept, with one industry spokesperson quoted as saying that American travelers would "never choose to sleep in a stranger's home over a professional, standardized hotel experience."

The Update: Airbnb is valued at over $70 billion. Americans have collectively made hundreds of millions of Airbnb bookings. We will absolutely sleep in a stranger's home if the photos look nice and there are good reviews about the towels.

6. Paying a Monthly Fee to Watch Television You Already Own

The Expert Take: When Netflix transitioned from a DVD-by-mail service to a streaming subscription in 2007, media analysts widely predicted the model would fail. "Americans already pay for cable," one analyst wrote. "They will not add another monthly fee for a redundant service."

The Update: Americans now pay an average of four or more streaming subscriptions simultaneously. We have, in many cases, recreated the cable bundle from scratch at equal or greater expense. We did it voluntarily. Nobody made us.

7. Letting an Algorithm Choose Their Music

The Expert Take: Music industry executives in the early 2000s were deeply skeptical of automated recommendation systems. "Music is personal," a record label executive told a trade publication in 2002. "Fans want human curation. They want a DJ, a critic, a friend's recommendation — not a computer's guess."

The Update: Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist, generated entirely by algorithm, has been streamed billions of times. People share their algorithmically generated Spotify Wrapped results like they're personality test results. The computer's guess is, statistically, very good.

8. Hailing a Cab From a Smartphone App

The Expert Take: Traditional taxi industry representatives and transportation analysts greeted Uber's 2009 launch with a mixture of amusement and contempt. "Americans taking taxis want to hail from the street or call a dispatcher," one transportation consultant said. "They're not going to stare at their phone waiting for a stranger's car."

The Update: Uber and Lyft complete approximately 28 million rides per day in the United States. Nobody has hailed a cab by whistling since approximately 2016.

9. Sharing Their Exact Location With a Corporation at All Times

The Expert Take: Privacy advocates and consumer researchers throughout the 1990s and early 2000s consistently predicted that Americans would fiercely resist any technology that tracked their physical location. "Location surveillance will be a non-starter with the American public," a 1999 privacy report predicted. "It is fundamentally incompatible with American values of privacy and autonomy."

The Update: Americans voluntarily carry GPS-enabled devices everywhere they go, have location services enabled on dozens of apps, and get annoyed when their phone can't find them fast enough. We also share our location with our friends, our families, and occasionally our ex-partners. The 1999 privacy report has not been well.

10. Buying Groceries Without Squeezing the Tomatoes

The Expert Take: For decades, grocery industry analysts maintained that food shopping was an inherently tactile, in-person experience. "Americans need to see, smell, and touch their produce," a 1997 supermarket industry study declared. "Online grocery shopping will never achieve meaningful penetration in this country."

The Update: Online grocery sales in the US exceeded $95 billion in 2022. We are, apparently, fine with unsqueezed tomatoes.

11. Paying Someone Else to Walk Their Dog

The Expert Take: Early pet service apps like Rover and Wag faced skepticism from consumer analysts who argued that dog walking was too intimate a task to outsource to a stranger found through an app. "Americans view their pets as family members," a 2013 consumer report noted. "They will not hand a leash to an unknown person from the internet."

The Update: Rover alone has processed over 50 million pet care bookings. We handed the leash to a stranger from the internet. The dog seems fine.

12. Reading Books on a Screen

The Expert Take: When Amazon launched the Kindle in 2007, literary critics and publishing industry figures were nearly unanimous in their skepticism. "There is something irreplaceable about a physical book," one prominent publishing executive said. "E-readers are a gadget. They will not replace the printed page for serious readers."

The Update: E-books now account for roughly 20% of all US book sales, and the actual number is likely higher when self-published titles are included. People read on their phones, their tablets, and their dedicated e-readers. Serious readers read on screens. The printed page is still here too, but it had to share.

13. Telling a Website Their Credit Card Number

The Expert Take: Early e-commerce faced enormous consumer resistance rooted in security fears. A 1996 New York Times article quoted multiple consumer researchers who predicted that Americans would never willingly enter financial information into a website. "The internet shopping concept fundamentally misunderstands American consumer trust," one analyst concluded.

The Update: US e-commerce sales topped $1 trillion in 2022. We type our credit card numbers into websites constantly. We have them saved. We use one-click checkout. We do this while connected to the hotel WiFi.

14. Exercising by Following a Video on Their Television

The Expert Take: The fitness industry long maintained that Americans needed the accountability of a gym, a class, or a personal trainer to exercise consistently. "Home workout videos are a novelty," a fitness industry trade publication wrote in 2018, specifically addressing the Peloton model. "Americans will not pay premium prices for the experience of exercising alone at home."

The Update: Peloton had over 6.7 million members at its peak. During COVID-19, Americans bought every home exercise product that wasn't nailed down. We will absolutely pay premium prices to exercise alone at home if someone is yelling at us encouragingly through a screen.

15. Asking a Stranger on the Internet for Medical Advice

The Expert Take: Medical professionals and health communication researchers consistently predicted throughout the 1990s that Americans would never substitute internet searches for professional medical guidance. "Patients want to talk to doctors," a 1998 health communication study concluded. "They will not trust anonymous online sources with their health decisions."

The Update: "Googling your symptoms" is now a universal experience and a cultural punchline. WebMD has convinced millions of Americans that their headache is a brain tumor. We did not stop. We will not stop.

The Pattern, If You're Keeping Score

The through-line in all fifteen of these predictions isn't that the experts were stupid. Many of them were quite smart. The pattern is that they consistently underestimated two things: human convenience-seeking, and the American capacity for adopting new behaviors when the price comes down and the interface gets simple enough.

The lesson, perhaps, is that "Americans will never do X" is almost always a temporary condition. The more accurate statement is: "Americans will not do X until it becomes slightly easier than not doing X."

After that, we'll do it a trillion times and act like we always have.