Are Location-Based Services Ready to Turn the Corner?
Despite reports that location-based services are far from mainstream, new research by Microsoft suggests the technology is gaining adoption and may be poised to follow in the footsteps of the ATM, which took some time to dispel safety concerns …
Context & Ripple Effects
The location story has been a two-year argument between adoption skeptics and believers: a September 2008 look at location-based social networking on the iPhone found early-stage services, TechCrunch framed the core tension in late 2009 as location's social paradox — sharing where you are trades convenience against exposure — and a November 2010 report concluded flatly that location services had not caught on.
Microsoft's new research cuts against that November finding: it claims adoption is gaining and likens location's trust problem to the ATM's, which took time to dispel safety concerns before becoming routine. The analogy matters because it shifts the debate from 'will people share location?' to 'how long until the safety stigma wears off?'
First-order effects
- Microsoft hands location-based service providers a ready-made counter-narrative to the November 2010 'hasn't caught on' verdict, repositioning slow adoption as a predictable trust lag rather than a demand ceiling.
- The named obstacle moves from features to consumer safety perception, putting the burden on check-in and broadcast apps to make sharing feel routine rather than risky.
Second-order effects
- Competitors building on location data now have an incentive to fund their own adoption and safety research, since whoever owns the trust story shapes which sharing models (opt-in check-ins versus continuous broadcast) win.
- If the ATM parallel holds, retail and payments-adjacent players watching location have a template: normalize the behavior first, monetize the habit second.
Third-order effects
- The structural read is that consumer location follows a familiar curve — new convenience technologies stall on perceived personal risk, then cross over once norms and safeguards settle — meaning the eventual winners will be those who solve the trust layer, not those who ship the most features.
The trend: Consumer location-based services are tracking the trust-before-adoption curve of earlier convenience technologies like the ATM, with perceived safety rather than capability setting the pace toward the mainstream.