Last year, I bought 16 oz cup of Alpine Strawberry ice cream from a small eatery across the street from Columbia University, and it changed the way I’ve thought of purchasing this type of good ever since.
As I enjoyed the creamy treat, I realized that I was deriving less and less satisfaction from each additional bite. The effect was so extreme, that as I scooped towards the midpoint of my cup, I found myself annoyed that there was even more ice cream to dig through. And, even though I didn’t want to eat it, I continued eating dutifully to avoid the guilt of wasting food.
When I finally emptied and disposed of the white styrofoam container, I realized that what I was purchasing wasn’t the ice cream, it was enjoyment derived from the experience of eating the ice cream.
The nonlinear relationship expressed on the ice cream store menu suddenly made sense. Larger sizes were disproportionately less expensive when compared using an assumption of a set amount of enjoyment per unit volume, which corresponded to the reality that enjoyment extracted from the ice cream as it was consumed fell over time.
The integral of ice cream enjoyment in reality creates a measured enjoyment that is significantly less than the expected enjoyment estimated using the misguided assumption that there is a direct correlation between enjoyment and volume. Additionally, there are further negative enjoyment effects, such as an expanding waistline, to be taken into consideration.
Purchases of things that temporarily improve your life at the cost of future well being should be avoided.
Imagine all of the online services that are displacing their offline counterparts – Hulu for TV, Pandora and LastFM for radio, EC2 and App Engine for server farms, Google Docs for Microsoft Office — the list goes on.
Now, once thought to be the last bastion of steep hardware requirements, even hardware-intensive video games are going online in a way that is arguably better than the offline experience.
3. We will accelerate the feedback cycle that will lead to ubiquitous computing.
Since our primary mode of interaction will be through the web, and nearly all the data we care about will be online, moving between interfaces will be virtually frictionless. And, since our data can always be with us, our environment can adapt to our preferences automatically, further easing everyday online interactions and continuing the cycle.
(I haven’t read this book yet, but it seems relevant.)
I have a few domains for sale that I don’t see myself using in the near future. Contact me if you’re interested.
donteat.me – It was going to be a vegetarian/vegan blog featuring side-by-side pictures of cute animals and the food they produce. Example: lamb next to lamb chops. Each article would focus on convincing the reader to stop eating the featured animal.
mychromoso.me – Tracking your genetic information.
carbonneutralize.me – Put up your own carbon calculator / offset service.
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