I ran into a great quote the other day, "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."

I ran into a great quote the other day, "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them." I'm going to start keeping this in mind with every one of my technology interactions. Two days before that, I spent probably 20 minutes of my day playing around with a flash gravity simulator somebody posted over here. Why? Am I to be in charge of hand-manipulating the orbital mechanics for dozens of bodies any time soon? Probably not. Because the interface has become the app. It's not about value any more, it's about stickiness. Tens of millions of folks spend hours on Farmville each day. Is this because they are just technically inept people who would be wasting their time doing something else anyway? I know this is what some folks would like to believe -- it makes them feel better about making more of the same stuff. But I don't buy it. Even if it were true for 90% of Farmville players, that still leaves 10% of the remaining users who would have done something that had more long-term value to them. Taking self-perceived long-term value away from millions of folks for days or weeks should be at least very noteworthy. Many web startups have found the magic equation: stickiness beats value. Expect to see more of the same.