Technology, necessities, and nice-to-haves

It seems there has always been an initial purpose for a technology to be created, and then we find out many other uses for it afterwards. In this technological upswing some call the information age it seems that it can be broken into two main categories: necessities, which then form the second category of nice-to-haves.

Without a doubt, the original intent of the phone was not for teenagers to call their teenage friends and complain about how mean their parents (who pay for the phone) are. Though, I'm sure the teens of the Stone Age complained that they didn't get the cool fur coat they wanted for their birthday (perhaps Daddy got mauled while out "shopping"). To put it simply, technology starts out fixing a specific problem, then gets commercialized and to the great hope of businesses, eventually turns into something we can't live without.