I love this, and not just because I also have elderly loved ones that are sources of anxiety. It's often seemed to me that we generally tend to chase new technologies and methods when there are...
I love this, and not just because I also have elderly loved ones that are sources of anxiety.
It's often seemed to me that we generally tend to chase new technologies and methods when there are still a lot of older, more mature technologies that haven't been adapted to various use-cases. Present this problem to a tech start-up or an established company and you're likely to get some hideously half-baked AI solution with buggy code and hardware that looks slick on a department store shelf, but doesn't really suit its intended use. Instead, this person used basic HTML and CSS to create a messaging service that fits the need pretty well perfectly, and used hardware that's well developed and low frills.
It's an object lesson in how incentives influence outcome. A corporation would never devise this solution, not because they're incapable, but because they aren't incentivized to solve it in this way. The maker here was only incentivized to solve the problem, not to turn a profit off of the solution. That in turn influenced all the decisions made in the development process: simple code resistant to connectivity downtime, less flashy hardware with just the features necessary to accomplish the task at hand, opening the process to others so they can implement parallel solutions that suit their needs instead of locking it all up behind intellectual property protections.
I've often mused that a fat lot of the enshittification we all bemoan could be solved if we can just figure out a way to properly incentivize companies to be more interested in the products and services they provide rather than stock price and gross profits. For instance, there's a very real social need for a reliable search engine that actually provides the information people need, but Google is less interested in that than they are finding new and crazy-making ways to monetize people's need for that information. There's nothing stopping companies from purposely tanking the utility of their products in the race for ever-greater profits and market cap, and I don't really know how to go about changing that without screwing up the incentives that drive innovation.
It’s funny you put it this way; arguably privately held companies are much better at this, but there are few large companies that are privately held.
I've often mused that a fat lot of the enshittification we all bemoan could be solved if we can just figure out a way to properly incentivize companies to be more interested in the products and services they provide rather than stock price and gross profits.
It’s funny you put it this way; arguably privately held companies are much better at this, but there are few large companies that are privately held.
My thoughts while writing this repeatedly turned to Valve, who i think exemplify the paradigm I'm struggling to describe. They completely revolutionized their industry specifically by focusing...
My thoughts while writing this repeatedly turned to Valve, who i think exemplify the paradigm I'm struggling to describe. They completely revolutionized their industry specifically by focusing always on products and services. It so happens that the innovations they developed were so sorely needed that they ended up with a virtual monopoly (in more than one definition of "virtual"), but I don't think that was ever their explicit goal. I think Newell et al. kept their focus specifically on the service they provided, and the profit followed. There's a lot to say about the specifics of their business and whether it's ultimately a good thing, but I don't think anyone can credibly argue that PC gaming is in a worse place now than 25 years ago because of Valve's activities.
I'm not generally inclined toward the Great Man Theory of History, but this particular example gives me pause, because I honestly don't know whether Valve could've accomplished what they have had it not been under the direct control of GabeN. Would a paradigmatic shift like I'm envisioning require a sort of enlightened, benevolent dictatorship like GabeN holds over Valve? If so, then there's probably no hope for it. Personal ambition is likely to generally trend all business endeavors toward enshittification in that case.
Like I said, I just don't know how to systemically shift incentives toward something akin to the Valve model.
Reminds me of the Nintendo mantra coined by Gunpei Yokai, the inventor of the Game & Watch and Game Boy. "Lateral thinking with withered technology" Using mature, inexpensive, well understood...
Reminds me of the Nintendo mantra coined by Gunpei Yokai, the inventor of the Game & Watch and Game Boy.
"Lateral thinking with withered technology"
Using mature, inexpensive, well understood technology to create innovative solutions.
That's essentially what the indie gaming scene has been doing for the past 15 years or so. Titles like Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley and Undertale are essentially taking the forms of 8-bit and...
That's essentially what the indie gaming scene has been doing for the past 15 years or so. Titles like Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley and Undertale are essentially taking the forms of 8-bit and 16-bit game genres and exploring what depths can be plumbed when the limitations of memory and storage of the original hardware are removed. Indie gaming has since become its own thing with its own conventions, themes and cliches, but something of the focus on depth remains.
I’m not sure if this is related. But I keep wondering if we could go back and “improve” old technology merely by adapting or adopting newer battery technology, but changing nothing else, if that...
I’m not sure if this is related. But I keep wondering if we could go back and “improve” old technology merely by adapting or adopting newer battery technology, but changing nothing else, if that makes sense.
I had always heard that battery technology was “five years behind” the rest of technology. Kind of a constant mismatch in advancement. We want more things at once or faster than before, thus the battery demand increases in each iteration, but the battery technology never increases at the same rate and never catches up.
I disagree with the implied fundamental assertion that profit is the only or best incentive. People want to make things, to explore and discover and create. Some are doing it to get rich quick but...
I disagree with the implied fundamental assertion that profit is the only or best incentive. People want to make things, to explore and discover and create. Some are doing it to get rich quick but most of the people working on rockets or vaccines or superconductors would still be invested if their basic needs weremet regardless of productivity.
The hobby scientist of old was often a bored nobleman because those are the kinds of people with the spare time and resources to dick around with prisms or copper tubes, people who had the benefit of a robust education and secure status. When people live comfortably they can turn their minds and time to make art or solve problems or discover fundamental truths about the natural world.
In short: the problem is the stick, not lack of a carrot.
Innovation consists of more than just invention. If simply thinking up a solution were sufficient, then the pre-Columbian Americas would've had wheeled vehicles instead of just toys, and Greece...
Innovation consists of more than just invention. If simply thinking up a solution were sufficient, then the pre-Columbian Americas would've had wheeled vehicles instead of just toys, and Greece would've had industrial steam engines two millennia before the Industrial Revolution.
There's also the problems of production and delivery to millions upon millions of people, and there are vanishingly few organizations capable of large scale production and delivery that are motivated by anything but profit.
The image of the gentleman scientist is a fine one to remember when considering individual motivations, but I'm not sure it's exactly applicable to large-scale modern industry. Sir Reginald Soggybottom in his estate laboratory may be a fine model for isolating the xenon atom or whatever, but modern innovation requires a high degree of specialization, which requires years of training and a wealth of resources that are beyond the grasp of any individual, at least at present.
There's no doubt in my mind that clever individuals will keep devising new solutions to problems–MomBoard is a fine example of that–but that's only a part of the needs of society. We also have a need to scale solutions up to the society level, and monetary profit is currently the overarching motivation for that. It's that need for scale and the difficulties in achieving it that I'm addressing.
This is really awesome. Such a simple thing to do with what sounds like a great result. I have been meaning to build a device like this for a while. Not because I have someone with a medical...
This is really awesome. Such a simple thing to do with what sounds like a great result.
I have been meaning to build a device like this for a while. Not because I have someone with a medical memory condition who needs help, just because we forget a lot of stuff due to being parents and busy. I already have an eink device which displays upcoming events from our house calendar, but one to which we can add notes via the web or Google assistant or whatever would be very useful.
"hey Google write 'don't forget PE kit tomorrow' on the board"
I'd use a Pi Zero and a dedicated Eink screen because that's a lot cheaper than a boox (but it's much more work). Shame Timasomo is done for the year...
I love this, and not just because I also have elderly loved ones that are sources of anxiety.
It's often seemed to me that we generally tend to chase new technologies and methods when there are still a lot of older, more mature technologies that haven't been adapted to various use-cases. Present this problem to a tech start-up or an established company and you're likely to get some hideously half-baked AI solution with buggy code and hardware that looks slick on a department store shelf, but doesn't really suit its intended use. Instead, this person used basic HTML and CSS to create a messaging service that fits the need pretty well perfectly, and used hardware that's well developed and low frills.
It's an object lesson in how incentives influence outcome. A corporation would never devise this solution, not because they're incapable, but because they aren't incentivized to solve it in this way. The maker here was only incentivized to solve the problem, not to turn a profit off of the solution. That in turn influenced all the decisions made in the development process: simple code resistant to connectivity downtime, less flashy hardware with just the features necessary to accomplish the task at hand, opening the process to others so they can implement parallel solutions that suit their needs instead of locking it all up behind intellectual property protections.
I've often mused that a fat lot of the enshittification we all bemoan could be solved if we can just figure out a way to properly incentivize companies to be more interested in the products and services they provide rather than stock price and gross profits. For instance, there's a very real social need for a reliable search engine that actually provides the information people need, but Google is less interested in that than they are finding new and crazy-making ways to monetize people's need for that information. There's nothing stopping companies from purposely tanking the utility of their products in the race for ever-greater profits and market cap, and I don't really know how to go about changing that without screwing up the incentives that drive innovation.
It’s funny you put it this way; arguably privately held companies are much better at this, but there are few large companies that are privately held.
My thoughts while writing this repeatedly turned to Valve, who i think exemplify the paradigm I'm struggling to describe. They completely revolutionized their industry specifically by focusing always on products and services. It so happens that the innovations they developed were so sorely needed that they ended up with a virtual monopoly (in more than one definition of "virtual"), but I don't think that was ever their explicit goal. I think Newell et al. kept their focus specifically on the service they provided, and the profit followed. There's a lot to say about the specifics of their business and whether it's ultimately a good thing, but I don't think anyone can credibly argue that PC gaming is in a worse place now than 25 years ago because of Valve's activities.
I'm not generally inclined toward the Great Man Theory of History, but this particular example gives me pause, because I honestly don't know whether Valve could've accomplished what they have had it not been under the direct control of GabeN. Would a paradigmatic shift like I'm envisioning require a sort of enlightened, benevolent dictatorship like GabeN holds over Valve? If so, then there's probably no hope for it. Personal ambition is likely to generally trend all business endeavors toward enshittification in that case.
Like I said, I just don't know how to systemically shift incentives toward something akin to the Valve model.
Reminds me of the Nintendo mantra coined by Gunpei Yokai, the inventor of the Game & Watch and Game Boy.
"Lateral thinking with withered technology"
Using mature, inexpensive, well understood technology to create innovative solutions.
That's essentially what the indie gaming scene has been doing for the past 15 years or so. Titles like Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley and Undertale are essentially taking the forms of 8-bit and 16-bit game genres and exploring what depths can be plumbed when the limitations of memory and storage of the original hardware are removed. Indie gaming has since become its own thing with its own conventions, themes and cliches, but something of the focus on depth remains.
I’m not sure if this is related. But I keep wondering if we could go back and “improve” old technology merely by adapting or adopting newer battery technology, but changing nothing else, if that makes sense.
I had always heard that battery technology was “five years behind” the rest of technology. Kind of a constant mismatch in advancement. We want more things at once or faster than before, thus the battery demand increases in each iteration, but the battery technology never increases at the same rate and never catches up.
Sorry for that tangent if it’s not related 😅
I disagree with the implied fundamental assertion that profit is the only or best incentive. People want to make things, to explore and discover and create. Some are doing it to get rich quick but most of the people working on rockets or vaccines or superconductors would still be invested if their basic needs weremet regardless of productivity.
The hobby scientist of old was often a bored nobleman because those are the kinds of people with the spare time and resources to dick around with prisms or copper tubes, people who had the benefit of a robust education and secure status. When people live comfortably they can turn their minds and time to make art or solve problems or discover fundamental truths about the natural world.
In short: the problem is the stick, not lack of a carrot.
Innovation consists of more than just invention. If simply thinking up a solution were sufficient, then the pre-Columbian Americas would've had wheeled vehicles instead of just toys, and Greece would've had industrial steam engines two millennia before the Industrial Revolution.
There's also the problems of production and delivery to millions upon millions of people, and there are vanishingly few organizations capable of large scale production and delivery that are motivated by anything but profit.
The image of the gentleman scientist is a fine one to remember when considering individual motivations, but I'm not sure it's exactly applicable to large-scale modern industry. Sir Reginald Soggybottom in his estate laboratory may be a fine model for isolating the xenon atom or whatever, but modern innovation requires a high degree of specialization, which requires years of training and a wealth of resources that are beyond the grasp of any individual, at least at present.
There's no doubt in my mind that clever individuals will keep devising new solutions to problems–MomBoard is a fine example of that–but that's only a part of the needs of society. We also have a need to scale solutions up to the society level, and monetary profit is currently the overarching motivation for that. It's that need for scale and the difficulties in achieving it that I'm addressing.
This is really awesome. Such a simple thing to do with what sounds like a great result.
I have been meaning to build a device like this for a while. Not because I have someone with a medical memory condition who needs help, just because we forget a lot of stuff due to being parents and busy. I already have an eink device which displays upcoming events from our house calendar, but one to which we can add notes via the web or Google assistant or whatever would be very useful.
"hey Google write 'don't forget PE kit tomorrow' on the board"
I'd use a Pi Zero and a dedicated Eink screen because that's a lot cheaper than a boox (but it's much more work). Shame Timasomo is done for the year...