[Article republished from “Mondays with Mike – 2/26/18” email newsletter ==> Subscribe to get weekly newsletter in your inbox plus FREE REPORT]
Convenience is the most underestimated and least understood force in the world today. As a driver of human decisions, it may not offer the illicit thrill of Freud’s unconscious sexual desires or the mathematical elegance of the economist’s incentives. Convenience is boring. But boring is not the same thing as trivial. – The Tyranny of Convenience
Your smart phone is your external brain. Or maybe it is a mini-You.
It can recall useful information (Google search). It can capture life’s important moments (pictures/video). It works for dictating your thoughts (audio recorder). It keeps you on schedule (alarm clock and calendar). It’s your social connection (phone, text, instant messaging, Facebook, Instagram). If is your business rolodex (LinkedIn). It is your phone/address book (phone contacts). You use it to write letters (email). It is your calculator. You bank with it instead of going to the bank. You track your finances with it for your personal life or business (Mint, Quickbooks, Quicken). It is your go to source for entertainment and problem solving (YouTube).
You name it, your phone does it.
But what happens with all this convenience?
Convenience often creates or subsidizes the monopoly.
We’re in an age of influencers. The whole point of an influencer is they can guide your decision making without having to do the hard work of evaluating things.
That is why even though people could spend a lot of time price shopping on Google, even in the store with their smartphone, people would still prefer the convenience of relying on other people’s suggestions rather than have to wade through pages and pages of reviews and comparisons online.
They just want to decide and get on with the rest of their day.
This is why, as Perry Marshall (promoter of the 80/20 rule in marketing) says, we’re going from 80/20 to 90/10 on the internet. 10% of the businesses control 90% of the sales.
You used to see this with Coke vs Pepsi (notice that Tab or RC Cola were not even in the discussion). Or it is Starbucks vs ??? or iPhone vs Android. Typically there’s #1, #2 and no one else matters to the conversation.
So I guess the question is,
“What are you giving up with all this convenience?”
People don’t often wash their own cars. They shop online at Amazon instead of going to the mall. You go out to a restaurant and while they’re waiting for their dinner, time that typically was the time for conversation and connecting before eating, now you’ll see families where everyone is on a phone or tablet. The mom gives the tablet to the toddler to keep him quiet.
We also used to complain that kids wouldn’t know how to do math in the real world because of calculators or if they got a job at the grocery store they wouldn’t know how to count change because everything was scanned and payment electronic.
Now I’m not saying the past was better than today. I enjoy much of this convenience myself.
And when I go off into the mountains backpacking with my kids I really grasp the power that convenience has given us as I leave it behind and get outside cell coverage range and have to use things like a map and compass and not always have the cell phone in my hand.
So the article I referenced wraps up with this challenge (notice I pulled from the original article so you wouldn’t have to read it – for your convenience).
So let’s reflect on the tyranny of convenience, try more often to resist its stupefying power, and see what happens. We must never forget the joy of doing something slow and something difficult, the satisfaction of not doing what is easiest. The constellation of inconvenient choices may be all that stands between us and a life of total, efficient conformity.
