CONCEPT
Say's Three Categories of Demand
The taxonomy Say's simplifiers erased: demand that precedes supply, demand created by novel supply, and latent demand awaiting adequate supply — the third category that explains the AI adoption curve.
Say's framework distinguished three categories of demand, a taxonomy largely lost in the simplified reception of his work. The first category is demand that exists prior to any act of supply — the hunger for food, the need for shelter, desires biological and structural. The second is demand called into existence by a novel product — Say's own example was the pianoforte, a device that created the desire for a specific musical experience no one had previously articulated as a need. The third, almost entirely ignored by subsequent economic thought, is demand that exists prior to supply but cannot express itself because no adequate supply exists. This third category — latent demand, stored pressure, accumulated creative potential — is the category that explains the AI adoption curve with a precision no other framework matches.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The distinction between the three categories matters because they produce categorically different adoption patterns. A category-one product