Economics & Marginalia: July 12, 2024

Famously, when Gmail came along, Google told us to stop trying to organize (and delete) our email and instead just rely on search to find what we’re looking for. Broadly I’d say that approach has worked well, and in the vast majority of cases, I err on the side of risking losing track of something later instead of spending the time to organize it n

... See more

"Any maximizing, economistic approach to living becomes a kind of hoarding as the means and ends reverse and it tips over into irrationality. It’s hoarding when I keep opening tabs, when I try to get to the end of my RSS article queue, when I use iTunes play counts to organize my listening habits, when I buy books I won’t live to read, when all ema... See more

As mail became an enterprise utility, more and more of its collaborative function was corrupted, as signalled above. It could not be a trusted medium with functions like cc and bc in common use. There were other problems. Email was fundamentally a broadcast mechanism. Control lay in the hands of the sender. And there was no real cost to sending. Un... See more

This description might sum up the author’s view of the global economy and those tasked with (or conscripted into) maintaining it. One myth that these confessions debunk once and for all is that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector in its employment practices. While derisive phrases such as “close enough for government work” h... See more

Your average e-mail client, browser software, spreadsheet software does not have an opinion regarding how it should be used. Instead, it provides a maximum of flexibility which is appreciated by the average user, yet, not optimal for particular target groups. This enables an untapped potential for challenger firms which are capable of two things (3... See more

Scenario number one is a disparity in economic power, in which the folks with the data and the algorithms have—and add all of—the economic value, and the rest of the workforce adds little or none.

That scenario could create an awful social disruption.