But even at that basic level, technology improved the lives of those who used it. They kept warmer at night, ate hot food and slept more soundly, worrying less about attacks by saber-toothed tigers and marauding tribes. Fast forward through the millennia, and the story is similar. Today's technology is much more complex, but it still makes those who use it better off. We are warmed by gas and electric furnaces, nourished by food heated in microwave ovens and protected by locks, alarm systems and 911 operators.
Technology leads to new products and services that improve our everyday lives.
There are plenty of patented inventions for which there wasn't much of a market, including the boomerang bullet, eyeglasses for chickens, coffins with escape hatches and fire escape suspenders. As with most economic activities, putting technology to work has a lot to do with incentives. An economy will produce technological change faster when the costs of doing so go down or the benefits go up. Technological know-how doesn't just happen. Ideas produce nothing until an entrepreneur or a company transforms them into new goods and services or better production methods.