Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas
longform.asmartbear.com
longform.asmartbear.com
Since so few ask it in a meaningful way, I dare to say it is still, unfortunately, a pretty extreme questions for those it should be asked to.
>In 1996, scientists at the United Nations devised a method to measure global carbon emissions. To simplify the process and avoid double counting, they suggested emissions from burning biomass should be calculated where the trees are cut down, not where the wood pellets are burned.
>The EU adopted this methodology in its Renewable Energy Directive, allowing energy companies to burn biomass produced in the US without having to report the emissions.
>The accounting method– which was never intended to assign national responsibility for carbon emissions, according to climate experts has created a lot of discussion and disagreement among advocates, scientists and policymakers. But ultimately it is not the accounting of carbon that is the problem, it's the emissions.
>"It doesn't change the physical reality." said Tim Searchinger, senior research scholar at Princeton University. "A law designed to reduce emissions that in reality encourages an increase in emissions... has to be flawed," he said, referring to Europe's directive.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/us/american-south-bi...
As long as the wood is coming from tree plantations, not from deforestation of course, which I expect to be mostly the case in North America and Europe.
Burning and replanting forests is not carbon neutral. Not even close. It's an accounting gimmick that the EU uses to make themselves look good.
In another hand, it's a market, as stated in their website, "It is the world's first major carbon market and remains the biggest one."[0], so for sure it will be a huge source of income and therefore the countries will have much more incentive to do it. I saw already the same in another countries and the results weren't so spectacular, but instead the whole supply chain just got more expensive, which meant the prices raised to the customers.
[0]: https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/eu-emissions-trading-...
That's a good thing and helps "green" products compete.
Externalities, clean up costs etc are currently not being charged which makes some products economically viable when they probably shouldn't be.
For example in China Coal plants keep getting opened, because despite a cheaper lifetime cost for solar, coal has a much lower upfront cost and without meaningful costs for environmental damage well you can always sell the fully profitable plant before the late life costs come and bite you. (There is more to it, but thats the simplified version of it).
Same with single use plastics. They are really cheap to make, but what about cleaning them up, recycling them etc. Without counting that cost, yeah manufacturing plastic is extremely cheap compared to like a well made pottery plate. But in 50 years the clay plate is still around and the plastic one is just microplastics in the ocean forever.
>you can always sell the fully profitable plant before the late life costs come and bite you
Why wouldn't this be accounted for in the selling price (unless you scam the buyer)?
But due to the hypothetical nature of those new environmental regulations they are probably not considered during the buyout process.
But the current trend would point towards their cost only going up, and no regulation making fossil fuel plants any cheaper to run or decomission.
> “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
"When is it justified to put the environment over human life?"
Here's another. Maybe no one should go hiking/camping/mountain climbing because the few that need to be rescued generally require cars/helicopters the burn fossil fuels to come to their aid, not to mention all the fossil fuels used to get them to their camp/hike/climb site and all the materials for their gear, all for "entertainment".
Also, you yourself are likely a net negative on the environment. Do you have an obligation to kill yourself?
Over 20,000 died in western Europe’s summer heatwaves [0]
Bangladesh, India floods kill over 100; millions in need of aid [1]
Climate Change Causes 5 Million Extra Deaths Per Year [2]
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/24/over-200...
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/21/bangladesh-india-fl...
[2] https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20210708/climate-ch...
Who is computing our environmental footprint? Are our interests aligned? Do our competitors also have to pay it? Is it computed the same for them? What is the penalty if we refuse to pay? Do loopholes exist and will they be exploited by our competition? Do tax programs already exist at a national level that go towards paying this footprint? Does such a cost necessitate operating above certain economies of scale to be in business at all? If we do business internationally, will we pay different costs in different jurisdictions? Is our footprint a net-bad thing or is our product a net-good whose footprint should be subsidized but isn't?
The question is likely one that many business will have to answer (whether they ask it or not) given the regulatory and financial controls being implemented by supranational governance.
But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision.
Although I like this, I'm still not quite sure what to do with my answers to these big questions. That is, I shouldn't just go and do things because it popped into my head as an answer to an extreme question. If it were a low-risk great idea, on the other hand, I should obviously do it. But what about all those ideas in the middle, which seem like they carry a significant risk, but could also yield a significant reward?
You don't have to tell people it's free. Tell them it's free for the first year, and don't actually charge them for future years. Automatically extend their subscription at 30 days.
Or only charge some people. Or cut them off when it expires, and then extend them 7 days after expiration.
Lots of options if direct revenue isn't super required and you've got room to expirement.
Our current focus is on revamping our freemium structure, so that instead of 2 weeks of unlimited usage and then extremely limited functionality thereafter, it would instead offer indefinite usage on a limited number of websites (it's a browser plugin that enhances text to make it easier/faster to read). Previously we've (not surprisingly) seen a ton of uninstalls at 2 weeks, and with the new structure we're hoping to hang onto more users for the long haul. Some of them would eventually convert, and some would just continue to think about us and recommend to friends. But another side effect is we could increase the number of 'favorite sites' that people get, up to some arbitrarily large number so it's effectively free unlimited usage.
Interestingly, the development that got us to pull the trigger on this change is the manifest v3 transition, which required us to revamp a lot of stuff about our extension so we figured we'd go for it. If this turns out to be a big plus for adoption, I guess we'll be thankful for being forced into the transition?
Switch the model, after 2 weeks it is limited to 1-3 sites unlimited and anymore requires upgrading.
You'll retain your students who are probably using it for specific sites to summarize papers or class information. Create the habit over a long period and then people will be willing to pay.
If you want a no code/less code approach allow to opt into an extension of 3-6 months if they click cancel.
Assuming COGS are low and the compute cost is on your side and not third party the goal is forming habits and then converting. The goal is not short term 2 week conversions to profit.
Would you like 25% paying after 2 weeks or 25% paying after 2 weeks AND an additional x% paying after 3-6 months?
- If your company were to suddenly lose all B2C revenue (without the benefit of increasing your rate of adoption), what would happen? Would your company survive? If not, what would need to be done for your company to survive with only B2B revenue? (More sales training? more enterprise features? resource cuts? or more aggressive growth to fulfill client requirements? etc)
- Compared to those things you said you've needed, how important would be the increased rate of adoption from making your B2C free of charge?
High-risk high-return problems are never easy, but I guess asking these different extreme questions lets you find some low hanging fruits to high-returns or get a plan going to make those moves less risky.
I guess what I really need is to talk to someone who's had to make this call in the past and get a sense of how scary this should be, and how to know when I've asked all the important follow-on questions. I imagine it's the sort of thing that one gets braver/better at after having just done it once or twice.
That sounds like a recipe for alienating loyal customers, if they find out they still have to pay, but everyone new does not. Then they will just cancel their subscription and also become "new users".
You could choose a country with a unique language and limit the free version to that language.
Though I'd question a limitation to a single country itself. Cultural aspects do matter, and by doing so you pin down two variables at once, so the results are much harder to interpret.
Answering the last bit: "What about those ideas ... which carry a significant risk, but also could yield a significant reward?"
This is perhaps the key question for developing any strategy. This dilemma is not limited to this one exercise! It's the classic "risk/reward" question.
There's a lot of literature on this, some of which is conflicting (of course!). One common example is "Three Horizon Planning," which (I'm bastardizing it for the sake of simplicity) asks you to separate work/projects/ideas into three "future horizons": H1=running the business, zero-risk stuff you know is useful, selling the same product to the same customers; H2=new products sold to the same customers and market, so more risk but more reward; H3=new products sold into new markets, new customers, so maximum risk but also maximum reward, potentially entirely new business units. So for example, Google optimizing search is H1, Google adding "Diagrams" to the suite that already contains "Docs and Sheets" is H2, and Google launching GCP or buying YouTube is H3. Then the idea is that you should have proportional investment in these areas; for example 70/20/10 on H1/H2/H3. Finally, you want different processes and expectations for each thing, since "stuff we should be able to predict" should not carry the same expectations as "stuff with high variance that we cannot predict."
Another rule of thumb I like is to find bets that are very asymmetric, i.e. the potential upsides are orders of magnitude larger than the potential downsides. The stock market or VC works like this, because the most an investor can lose by buying stock is 100% of the investment, but there is no limit to the upside. If possible, you'd multiply those by the probability that they occur, but in my experience, we're all very bad at knowing the probability. :-) So, maybe not so much about the specific numbers, but the broad notion that one should be _orders of magnitude_ larger, not just a little larger -- that's something which should be apparent even without a lot of analysis.
In any event, this is a great question, and it's important for any strategic thinking, not specifically connected to this exercise.
Or in terms of the language of the article:
how can we enlist the customer to work for us for free?That idea is kind of covered in the "No tech support" section, where they talk about the benefits of customer self-service.
What would be the most fun thing to build?
But then…
It has to be something that makes our product better, not a random technology or unrelated market.
Indeed, even for a company, it's wise to be in "Explore" mode sometimes / somewhere, in which case again the constraint might hamper ideas.
So I'd agree with you, removing that constraint could be a great idea!
One question I do wonder at times, and is probably applicable here is: "what if I removed all the constraints, what would I do differently and how would things change?". Eg: Suppose nuclear fusion is successful, and you can actually power whole of earth for 800 years with 1 cup of hydrogen. That is, you don't have to worry about energy anymore. How would that change the human behavior both in short and long term? Or to go to a more individual level, "If time wasn't a constraint for me, would I ship it differently?" and so on.
And no capex? I mean, renewables already consume zero "fuel", but they do have considerable capital investment.
"Cheap" energy in a box would obviously be completely transformative given how much of society is structured around extracting energy and using it efficiently to move things around or heat people or things. Depending on how cheap this is an even bigger transformation for developing countries.
You could even start to think about terraforming.
Build cheap and plentiful desalination plants on the west coasts of Africa, South America and Australia, and possibly re-green the Sahara and Outback.
Edit I forgot in this imagined world we have 'free' energy, so you can just pump water in.
So if you could keep lakes such as Lake Eyre (though it's salty) and others full, that would encourage plant growth, and coverage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eyre
I can't find a link, but there's a theory (and I don't know if it's been discredited), but once again, because humans settled into Australia they displaced mega-fauna and generally ruined the ecosystem in Australia and the Outback now is what it is. Even today, there's a story doing the rounds about how free roaming bison in the US double the plant biodiversity of the plains just by trampling on stuff.
There are all sorts of plans to irrigate Australia such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradfield_Scheme
Probably too extreme a question.
Interestingly, while from the beginning the word utopia was used to refer to a desirable (perfect) society, etymologically it simply means a place that does not exist.
In contrast to dystopia, which is clearly a bad place.
This isn't true, I think? Assuming that it derives from the Greek τόπος (location), it literally means "good place" (εὖ-τόπος). The no-such-place translation in Greek would probably be ἄτοπος, but that's an existing word and uses one of the other meanings of τόπος (it means uncommon or absurd).
"What would you do if you discovered that your company's core product or service has a net negative influence on the world?". This is a hypothetical, so assume the evidence you have is clear and the conclusion correct.
PR stunts aside, a business is where you allocate capital that needs to generate a return. Why overload this concept? Invest your money in a nonprofit or a charity instead. If you want to ride a horse, don't argue with a cow because it isn't a horse. Milk it, sell the milk, and buy a horse.
...And if this is not a discussion about how you personally are allocating your capital, your best next step is to go generate more capital because then you can invest it however you damn well please. :)
We must break that spell. For-profit business are not structured according to some immutable laws of nature. Everything about them is a legal construct and it can be tweaked. Corporate entities didn't even exist until a few centuries ago. There is probably an entire spectrum of entities one can have between a charity and a typical modern corporate.
Is it the government? The regulators and the executives of the companies they regulate are frequently the same people - they do their time in private enterprise and then they become policymakers for the industry they were working in. The justification for this is that an industry needs to be regulated by people who understand that industry in depth (if you're a programmer - do things go well when all the rules around your work are made by non-programmers?).
Is it the people? Depends on the country you're in frankly. In the US popular opinion doesn't really support heavy-handed corporate regulation. There are some high impact issues like anti-trust where the public is fairly sympathetic to reigning in the biggest bad guys and I think those are good places to put your resources. Again, the best use of those resources is putting them into an organization dedicated to working on that issue. And the more capital you acquire from your business, the more impact you'll have.
My point of view isn't that we should have no corporate governance. But I have the hard-nosed realist view that the wishful thinking of "we" is ineffective. It has a poor track record. I'm saying a better approach is to go make money and then use it to alter the fabric of reality directly. Maybe network with other people who've made their money and convince them to do the same. This is easier than most people realize, I mean it takes a lot of work and time, but it's the type of work that will prepare you to vet organizations and make smart decisions about who can do the most with your contributions anyway.
Another reason for empowered individuals to act on their hunches is that there is no sure fire prescription of how to achieve change. We feel that things are "not alright" and we can reasonably suspect "nearby" alternate realities. Yet finding the pathways from A to B is basically by trial-and-error. In such context, the more trials and the more orthogonal to each other, the better.
More systemic processes might be slow but they are not "ineffective". Its a matter of timescale and perspective. The slowest of them all, the educational system, is actually the most effective in the long run.
https://www.humanitix.com/au/about-us.
https://www.afr.com/technology/tech-platform-reimagines-ethi...
There are a few other similar examples, like https://thankyou.co and https://au.whogivesacrap.org.
This might be related to "what if we had to 10x prices," but of course revenue = price X N, so it brings up the N question, which is fantastic to do.
I'll consider how I might be able to add this to the article without too much overlap with "10x prices".
Which, if your goal is profitability, might be a great thing.
If you were never allowed to provide tech support, in any form, what would
have to change?
I would have to hire a team of folks to actually provide tech support, for sure.
But the product? Would need less attention to detail because we'd always be a phone call away.
Edit: Maybe I can train a ChatGPT embedding on how to use my product and force customers to use that...