You would think that shower temperature control and data monitoring would be built into your house wiring by now. But perhaps there’s a reason why it isn’t… Let’s call it the Principle of Commoditized Innovation: the most ubiquitous technology will be the least valuable technology upon which other technology can be valued. For example, we won’t soon have auto-driving cars because we make the roads smart. That would be too expensive. Instead, we’ll see car technology advancing rapidly while roads improve very slowly. The roads are the ubiquitous enabler, but because so much other infrastructure builds on it, it can only have the least innovative, most commoditized technology.

In the house case, we can expect to see ubiquitous house smart wiring when there are high value, compelling, and controlled technologies that necessitate its broad adoption.