Warning: this will be a (long) rant, but a useful one (I hope).
Like many people reading this, I've watched the Web grow from a small set of specialized content sites to an interactive experience, facilitating communication, community, and productivity. I've had high-speed Internet access since 1999 and I've enjoyed life without wires for 3 years now. After returning from Demo 2006, I've seen the hottest consumer technology, fresh off the compilers. But, since I know what's possible, I'm not excited about all of the products I saw this year, I'm furious that we haven't advanced further.
Imagine this situation: a geek driving back from his job in mountain view with a craving for an In-N-Out burger. He thinks that there's an In-n-Out on the way home, but knows that there's one slightly out of his way. If he had a computer, he'd hop on and confirm his suspicion in less than a minute; but since he's speeding down the road at 80 miles per hour in a $30,000 piece of hardware, he's trapped. Off to the known location! Of course, he gets off at the wrong exit and makes a wrong turn, all which would be corrected with (free) driving directions. At this point, he's hungry, unhappy about having wasted 30 minutes with his detour, and furious that there's no wireless access point at this particular In-N-Out.
To top it all off, when he plops down at a table and begins to write a blog post offline, the person sitting next to him notices his geekiness (the computer? the glasses?) and asks if he can help with a computer problem. The complaint was typical: his computer started making noises, he turned it off, turned it back on to hear worse noises [*scratch, scratch*], rebooted, and was given an arcane message about the disk not being recognized. The geek immediately recognized this situation as a dreaded Hard Drive Crash. Of course, this poor soul hadn't backed up anything and had no idea what to do (he didn't really even know what a "crash" meant).
Now imagine a streamlined situation: on the way home, the geek gets a craving for In-N-Out. He tells the computer he'd like to go to In-N-Out and the computer recalculates his route home. The computer then asks if he'd like to order the same as last time: a Double-Double and Cheeseburger, both animal style, a coke, and a bunch of fries. The geek notes that he'd like the Cheeseburger with onions this time. The computer sends the request to In-N-Out, complete with electronic payment. Upon arriving at In-N-Out, the geek goes to the express line and picks up his meal, which was prepared at the perfect moment, since In-N-Out knew his exact arrival time. As the geek headed to a table, his cell phone jumped onto the free In-N-Out network (for customers) and let him know that there was another geek with similar interests looking for a conversation at table 3. The geeks meet, share a burger, exchange e-mail addresses, and go on their merry ways.
Why is this so hard? None of this technology is outlandish, difficult, or expensive. Worse yet, people have been talking about scenarios like this for the past 20 years: so where is it?
My thesis: we spend so much time correcting the problems created by technology, that we don't have enough time to fix vexing real-world problems. At Demo, at least half of the companies built products to manage complicated technologies or to correct bad product design: how do I secure my network? how do I manage my e-mail? how do I get my photos from my phone to my computer? All of these products are admirable, but they should never have been built in the first place, had the developers of the original products thought about end-user goals. The first users of camera phones didn't just want to take pictures, they wanted to do something with those pictures, namely share them with friends. Why wasn't that built as a core feature in the original product?
When we technology companies spend so much time correcting problems that we create, we waste resources that could be focused on solving simple, everyday issues that people have. I argue that if we were to concentrate our energies on those solutions, we'd avoid the quagmire of problems-created-by-solutions and get exponentially better returns on our technology. Maybe then some of our wacky predictions about a streamlined world might actually be the case instead of shattered predictions.
I hope we can achieve the following over the next three to five years:
- Smart cars - I want all cars, from Kias to Bentleys, to know how to get me to where I want to go. The technology is out there: make it cheap and useful.
- Cheap, ubiquitous Internet access - every retail business should provide Internet access to customers for free or for a nominal fee.
- Simplified payment systems - no signatures, no greenbacks, no wallet, no identification, no checks.
- Reliable computers - automatic backup, no viruses, seamless updates, fail safe hardware, 99.999% up time.
- Total integration - all devices should be able to talk to each other, with no setup or complications.
All ye working for tech companies, I urge you to smoke Creepy Solutions out of their holes! Let's focus on the big problems and let the other companies clean up their own messes.
