The fate of the innovator

Not a Segway, a Dareway

Remember Segway? Always doomed. Always ridiculous. A case study in entrepreneurial hubris. It somehow never occurred to anyone at Segway – not designers, not investors, not breathless celebrity boosters – that looking ridiculous might be a disincentive to buy (look at Jeff ‘Mr Bean’ Bezos here. Imagine trying to have a conversation with someone hovering serenely a foot above you on a miraculous gyroscopic scooter.

Segway is a tribute to the unassailable (and quite cute) lack of self-awareness of the nerdy inventor type – autistic transport for autistic commuters. It’s somehow appropriate that the concept lives on in a toy. The Dareway is a plastic approximation to a Segway (without, presumably, the wizzy space-age gyro-stabiliser). It costs £130 and looks right in place alongside the other toughened plastic garden toys (although, according to this great Amazon review the thing could actually be life-threatening!).

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