Morning power walk, lunch oceanside, with one of my BFFs and fellow female founders today
the looming consequence of blind innovation
Someone forwarded me an email today with an article about how people were creating technologies to steal TV content from cable providers without paying for it, and creating various ad skip technologies.
While it’s easy to think that these types of things have a benefit, unfortunately they likely won’t.
The absence of ad revenue to fund the creation of content means the increase of subscription fees. It will make it harder for more people to have access to content, as ads supplement the cost to the consumer.
It can also mean that we will gain less access to information, as it costs money to send correspondents, photographers, etc. around the world.
While the internet appears to provide a solution for this, it’s naive to believe that things on the internet will always be accessible and free. Very soon, they will increasingly not be.
Especially when people are creating technologies to steal or give away what costs money to make.
In addition, the absence of revenue in general means the loss of jobs. The loss of jobs means the loss of economy. It’s nonsensical to tear down what creates this in our country without replacing it with something, to give away things for free that cost money to make, etc.
I’m not sure where the mindset of this might be going. But I’d gladly watch an ad or two to keep people working, and to ensure the information I want to consume remains affordable.
Granted, there does need to be a balance of ads with content — companies were getting out of control with this, which prompted the ideas for creating solutions to skip ads.
Just the same, it’s also likely foolish to believe that somehow the internet will ‘kill’ cable or carriers — the carriers and cable providers own the internet. The effort to do anything against them with the internet will only speed up their movement towards replacing the other platforms with it, which is fine.
But it can also mean that the very things that make the internet great — it’s openness, access, etc. — will likely end.
The garden has always been walled. The playing field could remain fair and open but likely not if innovation continues to try to dismantle the structure of platform business solely because those who own and operate on the platforms will take the likely upper hand in the end. And especially if everyone continues to believe the false idea that somehow we’re in control of it. We can have a hand if we’re wise about how we structure the future, but not likely at the rate things have been going, unfortunately.
Lots of other things being made and done at the moment will likely have cost (and in some cases, potentially harm) people in the end. It won’t be big corporations but consumers, and worse, those who are already controlled, limited and oppressed.
thanks to all the vets
I couldn’t pretend to know what it is like to ‘serve our country,’ to electively leave our safe little part of the world and go somewhere that is in a state of real chaos, oppression, or strife. It doesn’t matter the reason. I read an article today about soldiers and how hard it is to return back to life after their tour is done. One of the things that stood out to me most was that someone said, ‘children in Afghanistan don’t have toys,’ and that the mother who had spent time there had sewn back together people (ours and theirs) as a result of the war, and all the death witnessed. I could not imagine.
It takes a lot of courage, faith, strength. A relative, who had lived most of her life in another place in the world once said to me not long ago, ‘Regardless of its flaws, we still live in the best country in the world.’
Thanks to those who give that, and to those who lost people to make it possible for us all to have this.
paypal shouldn’t be leading the future of digital payments but likely is
There was an article today updating on Paypal’s offline retail strategy, which now includes a handful of stores beyond the initial store it rolled out with last year or so.
As part of the Paypal product, shoppers can either use a plastic card swipe or a enter a pin number with their phone number to make payments.
‘Enter a pin number with their phone number’ is the key element to the sentence.
Digital payments are happening in other parts of the world, currently moreso (especially moreso) than here in the U.S. They are utilizing this (pin number) payments versus card swipe, etc. because that is what likely makes best sense when looking at where and how people will be paying for things in the future ahead.
It’s easy for both consumers and retailers to adopt and adapt to, and also works well with the coming pay-everywhere for everything world we’re going to be in, thanks entirely to the internet platform which is and will increasingly be in everything — cars, buildings, hotel rooms, etc. People will buy everything via it through a range of devices — utilities, products, services, content, etc.
Currently most ‘mobile’ payments in the U.S. have centered around NFC and card reader hardware devices. Likely not for long, as NFC is expensive for retailers to adapt to and card reader devices will likely be clumsy for anything beyond certain devices (which won’t fit into the device agnostic future we’ll be in).
Though it could be possible for everything to be outfitted with card swipe capabilities in the future, it’s not likely it’ll happen that way. A pin number works, is likely really just a software upgrade for retailers, and consumers are relatively ‘trained’ to use pin numbers and other entry data which will help in migrating masses to adapting to and adopting digital payment.
It’s important not to confuse ‘digital’ payments with ‘mobile’ payments, as all payments will be both fixed and mobile in the future (as well as likely digital). True payment solutions looking ahead will be intuitive to this. The article above says Paypal’s signed with three big payment providers. Interesting, but Paypal in itself isn’t without its own obstacles and problems relating to position — even if it beats everybody to market with digital payments, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll win.
What’s surprising is that everybody else in the U.S. payment industry haven’t thought of the above. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.
p.s.
The broadcast TV platform’s disruption by the internet is closer than ever before.
It is important to note, this is about television distribution. It has nothing (or very little) to do with the content itself.
I read an article today that said TV companies were starting to push cable providers to move faster with their (cable providers) ‘TV everywhere’ efforts.
This signals:
1. The television industry is likely going to adapt well to the disruption of its legacy platform.
2. The television industry understands that cable providers - carriers - own internet infrastructure, and that’s where the play is (versus trying to marry up to the software side - websites, apps, social networks, etc.) of the platform.
What this likely means is that the odd men out won’t be:
1. The carriers/cable providers. It’s likely an illusion that anyone will be ‘cutting the cord’ — unless that means cutting the one that plugs your legacy, broadcast TV set into the wall. If its in the context of replacing the cable companies/carriers, that won’t be the case. More like switching from one ‘cord’ (broadcast TV platform) to another (the internet). The cable carriers own both.
2. The TV industry, which has figured out where to go to adapt.
And those of course who do not own broadcast TV platform, but do own internet infrastructure.
Which is not a single software side (websites, apps, social networks, etc.) company with exception to Google at the moment.
Google’s infrastructure play is very early at best, and very young. That doesn’t mean the company can’t potentially adapt. It depends.
The internet, being created and designed to replace the other five information delivery and communications platform, has disrupted each legacy business that it has disrupted to date differently a long its course. Some adapted (retail industry), some did not (music industry). Print media doesn’t really count because it has had a long disruption cycle, and has been in part limited in its ability to formally adapt and adopt its business to it because of a lack of devices (which wasn’t its fault). Not to say that print media companies (newspapers and magazines) have adapted well — in fact, we could have all been using the internet platform the way its designed (including print media companies and consumer consumption of print media products) since the early 2000s. TV business on the other hand is coming in pretty strong.
It’s kind of a little sexy when you think about it. In two years, we’ll be in a very different world.
lately
Scallops are on the list of things I’ve challenged myself to make in an effort to improve my cooking skills. But, it’s rosemary scallops, inspired by one of my favorite restaurant’s version.
Buying fresh herbs is a kind of a commitment, because there’s always more than what you’ll use. So, I’ve been experimenting with cooking scallops, which I love, in general.
Plus I went a little foodie crazy upon encountering fresh basil, which for some reason Whole Foods had on blast at the store this week. Not that I necessarily know how to cook with basil any better.
For lunch at the office tomorrow:
1. Marinating in a mix of olive oil, minced fresh garlic and shallots, salt, pepper and dry basil, from a recipe found online. 2. End result — marinated sushi grade scallops pan cooked, on quinoa with fresh basil and olive oil on top, served with a side of fresh organic vine tomato salad.
Scallops have been an interesting challenge. They’re really light so figuring out what to cook them in and serve them with has been a little bit of a recon mission. They don’t really really work with quinoa but it’s okay for lunch.
It’s a little shocking to find myself making this for lunch. A year ago I couldn’t cook at all. What?!
P.S. How funny is my lunch tote? I wanted something cool, like a killer case, but I’m too lazy to look for something like this, and this one was at the check out at Crate and Barrel while I was buying a vase for my house.
I do love the little bamboo utensils though, which I found at Whole Foods and are reusable. +1
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Sent this to a friend today, who is having a little love trouble with her man. She sent me Sade on the topic. Me, this one.
