WaxCylindersAndTelephoneMusic

It may be an apocryphal story but allegedly the inventors of the telephone imagined it being used to distribute music. Whereas the inventers of the wax cylinder thought of it as something to store office documents on.

The story is usually told as a kind of "you never can tell, eh?" scepticism about predicting the use of technology.

But why was sound recording better for publishing music than recording office docs. And why was the telephone better for business communication than music distribution?

See also :

• TechnologicalDeterminismInMusic