India, Oct. 23 -- History is replete with ironies, perhaps none more striking than the initial reception accorded to innovations that now define contemporary existence. Long before smartphones, personal computers, and commercial aviation became seamless facets of daily life, their earliest iterations were routinely dismissed by industry titans, institutional experts, and the general public as impractical luxuries or hazardous distractions.

The journey from conceptual breakthrough to universal adoption is rarely straightforward; instead, it is typically paved with skepticism, regulatory resistance, and institutional inertia.

When Thomas Edison unveiled the incandescent electric lamp, prominent gas lighting companies and municipal authori...