Even Great Ideas Can Fail At First; Just Look At The Zipper- Quartz

Sometimes the measure of an idea's success isn't how much it stands out, but how well it has blended into the background. The zipper doesn't tend to call much attention to itself, but it can be found stitched into our jeans, jackets, pillow covers, handbags, luggage, and countless other items. It's become indispensable and ubiquitous. One estimate put the number of zippers the US consumes annually at 4.5 billion. "That's 14 zippers for every American per year". The technology itself was far from an instant hit. For one thing, other methods for closing things-such as buttons, hooks-and-eyes, and laces--had been around a long time and worked just fine, even if they could be slow and laborious. "There was no general sense that this was an area begging for improvement, much less replacement," wrote technology historian Robert Friedel in Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty.

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