Successful modern technology: Demand trumps supply

Successful technology in economic growth is not just about pushing out the frontier; it’s about bringing everyone along. Put another way, it’s about raising the average, not just the very top of the distribution.

This lesson has been with humanity ever since at least 14th-century China’s epic fail, although admittedly most of the time we are oblivious of it, given scholarly obsession with technology having to do with only supply-side productivity.

Almost exactly a year ago, Apple overtook Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable technology company (and the world’s second most valuable company, period). Last month, Apple overtook Google to become the world’s most valuable brand.

John Ross (30 May 2011) puts in context what is now simultaneously the world’s most valuable technology company and the world’s most valuable brand:

“Apple of course, by most industries’ standards, is a high tech firm. But Apple is not famous for fundamental technological research. It did not create the laser - as did AT&T and the Hughes Aircraft Corporation - or the transistor - as did AT&T and Texas Instruments. It was not a company that produced the world’s first microprocessor, as did Intel - a company continuing to demonstrate technological prowess in the recently announced revolutionary three dimensional Tri-Gate microprocessor.”

Instead,

“Apple’s outstanding skill - shown in its series of world beating products stretching from the Macintosh, through iPod, iPhone to iPad - is to mass produce products which the user can individualize.”

Now, for some observers, that final phrase might come as a bit of a let-down. What, not whizz-bang tech that you might find only in Iron Man’s armor, or some spiffy widget that makes assembly lines run faster? No.

Moreover, the statement is not even correct. For the more technical of the IT crowd, Apple’s products are the exact opposite of customizable. Compared to Linux, say, Apple’s OS is closed; and compared to other computing boxes, Apple’s hardware can be pried open only by simultaneously breaking an explicit legal agreement. Customization of the iPhone via jailbreaking is sanctioned only by the Library of Congress, not by Apple itself.

But there lies the nugget of truth for why technology now is so much more fun and in-your-face for so many: For the average user, Apple products are customizable enough.

Consumer tastes, not the needs of raising industrial productivity, provide the leading force shaping modern technological development. Demand trumps supply.

Reading and writing

Technical writing brings a sense of personal accomplishment. It puts food on the table. It is part of my official work. It is what I need to do every day. And, I hope, it has some impact on what happens around me, whether in advancing science or in improving how society works. No, really, I'm not proud; I can live with either. Yet other work---not completely random of course but related to what I do (e.g., in Newsweek [December 2005] or on BBC Panorama [November 2004]) although not in my official job description---bring something else. People you didn't think would be interested in what you say end up touched somehow. People all over the world reach out to you. They want to understand too. They figure you've shed some light on their concerns and their worries. They tell you what it means to them, what you've said.

Maybe exactly how much we academics get paid in our official jobs just isn't that important, when we have been gifted with such opportunity and when -rightly or wrongly- so many people out there feel what we do matters to them. Then again, however, Steven Spielberg has all this too, and gets paid a lot more than academics do. But, of course, he has to do that 24/7, and can't retreat into technical writing.