These familiar examples deceive us into
assuming that other major inventions were also
responses to perceived needs. In fact, many or most inventions were developed by people driven by curiosity or by a love of tinkering, in the absence of any initial demand for the product they had in
mind. Once a device had been invented, the
inventor then had to find an application for it. Only
after it had been in use for a considerable time did
consumers come to feel that they "needed" it.