The curse of over-optimization
On the long-lost Google Reader, Craigslist's effect on journalism, and why there are so many reasons to wonder if high tech is really the best we can get
A deep apparent contradiction haunts many corners of modern life: On one hand, we know we are living in what is objectively the most technologically advanced era of human history. On the other, there is a nagging inescapable sense that many things used to be just a little better.
■ We have living memories of online services and applications that have either gone away (like Stitcher or Google Reader) or have become crowded with slop, advertising, or propaganda (name just about any social media site). There was easy, free tax-filing software before there suddenly wasn’t, movie rental stores had loads of classics before Netflix caught cultural amnesia, and even the Postal Service aimed for quicker deliveries before it abruptly didn’t.
■ Certainly, lots of the most impressive technologies have displaced older ones, and sometimes at significant collateral cost. Yes, searching for classified items online is more efficient, but what’s been great for Craigslist has been devastating to local newspapers.
■ The real root cause of the uneasy state of affairs is over-optimization. Any good market-based enterprise is going to devote energy to rooting out inefficiencies and finding new sources of revenue. But there aren’t just diminishing returns to that behavior, there also comes a state at which the relentless optimization starts to repel customers: Airline seats so small they actually cause pain, “customer service” from Kafkaesque phone trees, and grocery bags so thin and prone to tears that every purchase must be double-bagged.
■ There isn’t an easy answer to resolve the problem, because it really isn’t even just one problem. It certainly doesn’t help that so many startup founders just want to sell out or that private equity firms gobble up companies with plans to sell them right back off again in about the length of one Senate term. But there might just be some hope to be found if capitalists with longer time horizons start to pick up on the broader public frustrations with over-optimization and align their interests accordingly.