Everything that came after is a derivation from the observations published in 1956, leading to the most famous one: "Crossing the Chasm". Intuitively, the adoption cycle makes sense. That's what we've seen when Apple released the iPhone, or when every entrepreneur chases "early adopters".

Maybe we just parse a pattern in the light of a very broad generalization of human behavior. Perhaps early adopters are just early because they found out first. Perhaps it's only a rate-limited diffusive system, where identities are less important. In the meantime, if I see a chasm I'll cross it.