Before the creation of the cassette tape, the main method of recording audio was vinyl or the reel to reel. Vinyl was mainly used to record music albums though, and the hardware to play them could be expensive too. Vinyl also wasn't very portable due to its size and durability. As for the reel to reel, it used audio tape to record its sound on two discs. The discs and machine to record the audio were bulky and complicated to use. This led to them only being used by radio stations, hobbyists, and generally professionals. This left the average consumer to be left without any recording devices of their own.
That was until 1963, when Lou Ottens created the cassette tape. He had initially wanted this new technology to be a more convenient way for people to record themselves. He also had the notion that cassette tapes would be used to teach language and speech exclusively. These pioneers did see success during the experimental phase of the cassette tape.
The uptake started when other consumers realized how easy it was to record any type of audio. Many of these early pioneers were journalists, clergy, and law enforcement. The cassette tape made it easy to record personal logs, sermons, or interviews. As their popularity grew Phillips, the company that Lou had worked at, made it easy for the the early majority to expand upon the cassette's uses. They provided free licenses to any company that wanted to use the cassette technology. This led to the creation of Sony's Walkman, boom boxes, and the early voicemail recorders. The spread of applicational uses for cassettes cemented the build up for their success (https://legacybox.com/blogs/analog/history-of-the-cassette-tape).
Late adopters most likely came in with how prevalent cassette's ad affected the music industry. Cassettes were an affordable way to spread music, so while popular artists had put their music on these tapes so did many new and unknown artists. Cassette's also allowed for the first playlists, called mixtapes, to be made. People would often trade their mixtapes with someone else. It was around this time where Cassette's entered the maturation phase too.
By the mid to late 1980's, cassettes entered the stagnation phase (https://smurdy.medium.com/cassette-tape-technology-and-its-impacts-on-u-s-culture-c2c265d5765a). They had been a global success and most of the laggards seemed to either be audiophiles who saw cassettes as poor imitations of vinyl simply weren't interested in the technology (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-cassette-tape-revolution). By the late 1980's, cassettes entered the longtail due to the creation of CDs. CDs quickly began to replace them, especially in the western markets. Now cassette tapes have only a small fraction of the market they once dominated. They're still being used, but now they're seen as niche.
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