How disruptive tech companies disrupt our norms: Airbnb

For a technology company to be disruptive, it needs to change norms. Airbnb, Tinder, and Uber have all found success by building new normative behaviors and then firmly positioning themselves at the forefront of this new behavior. Whether it’s sleeping in a stranger’s house, getting in a stranger’s car, or dating by swiping on a stranger’s photo, all of these companies have redefined what was previously considered normal for their massive financial benefit.

These companies want to change norms because when norms change, the behaviors society considers appropriate change along with them. Norms work in a permissive sense by enabling new behaviors to take place. They don’t guarantee these behaviors; they just enable them to become an option. You don’t have to rent a room in a stranger’s house, but that option is now available to you because of Airbnb.

One of the most amazing things about norms is that once they are adopted, it’s hard to imagine life before they existed. Getting into a strangers car or sleeping at a random person’s house is just normal. As norms evolve, they leave future generations astounded when they try to envisage what was or wasn’t considered ‘normal’ in past eras. Very few people during the eighteenth century could have imagined the emergence of a global anti-slavery norm, while few in the nineteenth…