At Etcon. At “O’reilly Radar” session. Getting annoyed. Tim O’Reilly saying that watching the alphageeks is how to predict the future and create better things. Alphageeks as the bellweather for progress. Tech-trends are the leading, driving force of society. The Morlocks lead the Eloi. Trickle-down technological determinism. What about the Omega people, those who couldn’t care less about technology in and of it’s own sake. Could studying their needs and and inclusively designing products, services and strategies be a Better Way [tm]
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Petafloptimism 
The alpha geeks are usually wrong anyway, so I wouldn’t worry. But as is the way with all these things, they have a x100 strike rate, so even if they strike out 90% of the time, they still end up hitting a few home runs.
(US-sport-centric metaphor for some semi-appropriate reason, blah)
Man U lost 6-5 on aggregate by the way. great match tho… 😉
Of course, it’s the nature of futurists to speak in the fuzziest of terms, so in the long run, I expect both you and Tim will claim prescience. For example, let’s look backward:
the automobile — a fringe geek thing that eventually became commonplace, only the commonplace version was designed for the Omegan and the do-it-yourself car is now virtually extinct.
the Hi-Fi — a fringe geek “audiophile” thing right up until very recently, but obsolesced by digital technology (?) such that the Omegan gets Hi-Fi sound even though it’s not particularly important to them to have 20Hz-20,000Hz flat response.
the list goes on, but as with any list, it depends as much on where we look. Were the geeks the first to use nylon pantihose? Were they first with contact lenses? How about organic vegetables or herbal shampoo or any one of thousands of everyday consumer goods that didn’t exist yesterday?
Conversely, why are we all not wearing pencil protectors, where are our Apple Newtons and how many of your neighbours have comic book collections or Nerf guns?
Generalizations are a sticky business.