I was listening to Ed Zitron's podcast Better Offline (great start! 2 whole episodes!) - and the tech skepticism was flowing well (“Rot Economy”, “Autopsy of Apple Vision Pro”) - until crashing into a breakwater of old-fashioned Techno-Fandom that exemplifies much of what “The Tech World” has imposed on us.
Ed starts with a detailed story of his trials in reviewing the Apple Vision Pro - poor customer communication, poor fit, poor functionality, poor match to most of his work-flow - still using it a few weeks in for office work in some ways *with* the caveats.
His subsequent chat with Joanna Stern (Tech Reviewer, WSJ) brought the expectations of low-expectation Tech - she praised the unit effusively, but a long series of admissions (“Well, yes, that’s true, but…” for every limitation) undermined her enthusiasm, most explained away by “the technology is early, they have to start somewhere; in five years this will be everywhere; of course Steve Jobs would have shipped it like this.” Ed, on his own, finished the segment faint-praising the Apple Vision Pro, admitting to it’s limitations, and breath-taking high price tag for what it does.
Which brings us to… WHY does tech get to do this to us? Underwhelm, underdeliver, overvalue, miss the target - then expect us to *still* use their product, and *still* pay them for it? There is literally no other consumer product or service that expects us to pay for their failure to deliver - and continues to fail to deliver.
“A New, Next-Generation restaurant is opened by the enthusiastic 21-year college drop-out with no prior kitchen experience what ever: The service staff was clueless; the front-of-house couldn’t be arsed to even find tables for guests, let alone seat them. The menus were cut’n’pasted from magazines, the entrees were flavorless and undercooked, the desserts were literally running off the plates onto the floor. But the chips! The crisp chips with the (burnt) appetizer! OMG!! Just think what this chef may be in five years! You need to be first to this trend; you need to buy every meal they serve until the miracle occurs!”
“Introducing Cookies(tm), our Next-Generation Cookies! Bland - undercooked - flavorless - but the new Cookie Technology(tm) will revolutionize Cookies as we know them in five years or so!! Be on the trend - buy our Cookies(tm) today!! You won’t enjoy them, but you’ll be part of the revolution!!”
“New! Introducing Massaj!! Our advanced-tech on-demand Massage-Gigs-as-a-Service (MGaaS)! No experience necessary! Learn on the job; get paid to “train real time” on paying customers (No actual skill of our masseuses is implied or guaranteed).”
…and so on, and so on. Look, tech isn’t magic, and it isn’t “important” except for what it can do for us rather than to us. We have every right to expect tech to deliver *now*, not empty promises of a future they may or may not be around for, and may or may not be bothered to develop.
Entrepreneurs should be excited about their product, and the future of their inventions. Even “Venture Capitalists” (remember the “venture” part of VC?) should be hoping for their future return when the invention turns profitable. But the venture is, as said, the future - why should we pay-their-way while they wait? The strongest part of VC-funded efforts seem to be marketing FOMO - enticing consumers to be part of the new, the next, the future. Much less effort and time seems to be invested in the product.
Resist! You cannot be left behind; you do not need those unfunctional prototypes being sold as “first generations”!