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I think he kind of missed the elephant that is modern communication technology has reduced the marginal cost of skilled services enabling pretty much every obje

I think he kind of missed the elephant that is modern communication technology has reduced the marginal cost of skilled services enabling pretty much every object designed in an office and manufactured in a factory to benefit from a broader array of engineering and design professionals and methodologies. The average product and service that the average actor in the economy interacts with is designed and optimized to a far greater degree today than they were historically. Look at the bottle of Elmers glue on the table. Today the glue probably works better (barring regulation that forces compromises to product efficacy) and comes in a bottle that uses half as much plastic. Something like a bottle revision that would have formerly required expensive salaried employees to come up with multiple options, send them to the supplier, supplier has to respond to each with details and quotes, etc, can now be accomplished in a fraction of the man hours thanks to email and CAD being ubiquitous in the entire supply chain from marketing, to engineering, to the vendor's contractor who will actually design the tooling. Sign off might take days instead of weeks. This sort of efficiency improvement allows more engineering, design work, or other optimization to be done to every good and service in our economy allowing it to penetrate into even the most thin margin use cases. From farming to high finance products and services are substantially more influenced and optimized by specialist professionals than they were in 1990. Increase efficiency like this throughout the national and global economy is how lawnmowers and A/C units can be sold on sale for $100 and still make a profit. (yes I know that example isn't perfect but you get the point).

minikites 5y ago
>(barring regulation that forces compromises to product efficacy) Can you really not think of any benefits of regulation to correct for pervasive market failures?
- Filligree 5y ago
  Of course there are benefits. It’s still true that it compromises the main goal of the glue—compromise is the point.
  - minikites 5y ago
    That's not the typical framing I see, it's usually "government regulations strangling private sector innovation" with the implication that there are no benefits.
    - BurningFrog 5y ago
      I'd say the costs outweigh the benefits, and the benefits often go to the politically connected who can influence the regulations.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        > the benefits often go to the politically connected who can influence the regulations The benefits go to a lot of people, or you could say that voting makes you politically connected. Politicians must balance many interests, including those of the politically connected and of the voting public. You don't want to be the politician who failed to protect your constituents.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > It’s still true that it compromises the main goal of the glue—compromise is the point. That may happen, but it's not generally true. Regulation can, for example, increase competition which increases innovation. It can standardize safety rules, which reduces the risk for manufacturers clearly defining what they do and don't have to do. Etc.
MontyCarloHall 5y ago
The downside to broadening the talent pool for design/manufacturing is that it means workers now have to be among the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living. It no longer suffices to be the best in a local region. If each local region needs its own widget factory, then to become a top widgetsmith you only have to compete with the local widgetsmith talent pool. Just as there can be many high school star athletes across the world, there can be many top widgetsmiths within their local widget factories across the world, even if each is likely mediocre relative to the global pool of widgetsmiths. Now the widget market has globalized. To become a top widgetsmith, you now need to be the best in the world. There is no room for locally optimal widgetsmiths when the market can globally optimize, just as there’s no room for most star high school athletes at the NBA. The upside is that the entire world gets much better widgets. The downside is that you can only make a good living as a widgetsmith if you’re the absolute best in the world. Local markets lead to redundancy, which is globally inefficient but locally optimal.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  The upside I think of is that this enables more specialization and "division of labor", which is one of the basic drivers of prosperity.
  - lastofthemojito 5y ago
    True, but a downside is that there may be a correlation between specialization/division of labor and depression/ennui. I don't have any data handy, but I think we often feel greater satisfaction working through all of the aspects to creating something versus being a "cog in the machine" and specializing in one role. E.g. I'd rather build a boat - have a hand in the design, source the materials, and actually physically build it rather than work in a factory and operate a machine that spits out rudders all day, every day. Of course, the boats created via mass production are probably going to be cheaper and in many ways better than what a novice manages to put together.
    - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
wolverine876 5y ago
> Today the glue probably works better (barring regulation that forces compromises to product efficacy) Regulation might do that and there is much more going on: Regulation also protects health and safety of customers and workers (especially important with chemical products) and prevents fraud, and it corrects market distortions that damage businesses, including instituting changes that the nature of the market prevents any one business from implementing, and opening up competition. Other things limit technological innovation, including incumbents with market power who profit more from eliminating competition than from improving their products.
dalbasal 5y ago
"From farming to high finance products and services are substantially more influenced and optimized by specialist professionals than they were in 1990. Increase efficiency like this throughout the national and global economy is how lawnmowers and A/C units can be sold on sale for $100 and still make a profit. " You can find examples of this, but overall, I dispute the generalization. I think quality/price improvements have been monumental in some areas, stagnant in others. Computer related products have gone crazy. It's not more for less though, it's "much more for a little more." The market grew a lot and a produces a hell of a lot more. Even that isn't the norm though. More for less, even less for less, are uncommon. Farming and manufacturing.... None of the capitalisation, gene patents and such of recent generations is anything like basic green revolution tech, in terms of productivity growth. Farming is different. It uses less labour, more capital, but it's not producing much more efficiently. The price of farm produce isn't falling, quality is not rising. Same for most manufacturing, especially basic manufacturing. Most of the last generations' gains were made by employing cheaper employees in cheaper places, not reinventing manufacturing techniques. So, low end, high volume manufactured goods got cheaper, but a car still costs what it costs. Good quality appliances generally do too. The quality of housing has gone up, but prices are often very high. Education... we have more and arguably better, but more expensive. Medicine... same. More and better, but more expensive. There's a pattern here that's more complex and interesting than the average.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Computer related products have gone crazy. It's not more for less though, it's "much more for a little more." I thought we liked Raspberry Pis on HN.
- dntrkv 5y ago
  > Education... we have more and arguably better, but more expensive. There are many thousands of people on this forum that have gotten a free education and in turn, one of the best careers in history from that free education that would never have been possible until recently. I'm seeing more and more people (that aren't designers and engineers) are forgoing classical education and making a great living for themselves just by utilizing the freely available information on the internet.
dougmwne 5y ago
I had a moment like this recently with, of all things, a snorkeling mask. It was one of those full face masks with a big snorkel sticking out the top like a unicorn's horn that popped on the market a few years ago. It is a marvel. It took all the downsides of the old masks and ingeniously fixed them. Full mouth and nose breathing so you can breathe naturally and comfortably, an airflow pattern that pulls dry air over the lens and keeps it fog free, a wide-angle lense for a better view and less claustrophobia, and an ingeniously designed system of valves that keeps water from flowing into the snorkel and uses your exhalation to push any leaked water in the mask out the bottom. All together, it eliminated the underwater panic I would usually have to fight through while snorkeling and made me feel like a dolphin. No way a product like this could have been made without the collaboration of a lot of very skilled professionals.
- david422 5y ago
  That's got to be some person with a snorkeling hobby and they are just thinking "there's got to be a better way than this".
- treis 5y ago
  These are somewhat dangerous as the additional airspace allows CO2 to build up. I haven't seen good studies either way, but there's lots of anecdata out there of people reporting symptoms.
  - phreeza 5y ago
    That doesn't make sense to me, why would a larger space allow for more CO2 buildup, if there is a connection to the outside?
    - treis 5y ago
      There will be some mixing of fresh air through the snorkel but that's a small opening and a long tube. It will still mostly be the air you exhaled. For a traditional snorkel that's a small volume relative to a breath but not so much for those masks. Plus, if you're diving under the water a traditional snorkel will be completely purged while these masks will retain the air.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
> missed the elephant that is ... Definitely a big deal, but mostly invisible on the demand side. You're talking about improvements to the supply process; the article is about what consumers experience.
tootie 5y ago
I think he missed a lot bigger elephants. Things like the massive reduction in global poverty levels or eradication of polio. The global decrease in crime. We reversed ozone depletion and massively decreased the mortality rate for HIV. This post is more like a list of cool products we have now when we have monumental human development achievements no one is talking about.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Polio is not eradicated and with Taliban taking over Afghanistan, likely won't be anytime soon.

minikites 5y ago

>(barring regulation that forces compromises to product efficacy) Can you really not think of any benefits of regulation to correct for pervasive market failures?

Filligree 5y ago
Of course there are benefits. It’s still true that it compromises the main goal of the glue—compromise is the point.
- minikites 5y ago
  That's not the typical framing I see, it's usually "government regulations strangling private sector innovation" with the implication that there are no benefits.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    I'd say the costs outweigh the benefits, and the benefits often go to the politically connected who can influence the regulations.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      > the benefits often go to the politically connected who can influence the regulations The benefits go to a lot of people, or you could say that voting makes you politically connected. Politicians must balance many interests, including those of the politically connected and of the voting public. You don't want to be the politician who failed to protect your constituents.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > It’s still true that it compromises the main goal of the glue—compromise is the point. That may happen, but it's not generally true. Regulation can, for example, increase competition which increases innovation. It can standardize safety rules, which reduces the risk for manufacturers clearly defining what they do and don't have to do. Etc.

MontyCarloHall 5y ago

The downside to broadening the talent pool for design/manufacturing is that it means workers now have to be among the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living. It no longer suffices to be the best in a local region. If each local region needs its own widget factory, then to become a top widgetsmith you only have to compete with the local widgetsmith talent pool. Just as there can be many high school star athletes across the world, there can be many top widgetsmiths within their local widget factories across the world, even if each is likely mediocre relative to the global pool of widgetsmiths. Now the widget market has globalized. To become a top widgetsmith, you now need to be the best in the world. There is no room for locally optimal widgetsmiths when the market can globally optimize, just as there’s no room for most star high school athletes at the NBA. The upside is that the entire world gets much better widgets. The downside is that you can only make a good living as a widgetsmith if you’re the absolute best in the world. Local markets lead to redundancy, which is globally inefficient but locally optimal.

BurningFrog 5y ago
The upside I think of is that this enables more specialization and "division of labor", which is one of the basic drivers of prosperity.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  True, but a downside is that there may be a correlation between specialization/division of labor and depression/ennui. I don't have any data handy, but I think we often feel greater satisfaction working through all of the aspects to creating something versus being a "cog in the machine" and specializing in one role. E.g. I'd rather build a boat - have a hand in the design, source the materials, and actually physically build it rather than work in a factory and operate a machine that spits out rudders all day, every day. Of course, the boats created via mass production are probably going to be cheaper and in many ways better than what a novice manages to put together.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

> Today the glue probably works better (barring regulation that forces compromises to product efficacy) Regulation might do that and there is much more going on: Regulation also protects health and safety of customers and workers (especially important with chemical products) and prevents fraud, and it corrects market distortions that damage businesses, including instituting changes that the nature of the market prevents any one business from implementing, and opening up competition. Other things limit technological innovation, including incumbents with market power who profit more from eliminating competition than from improving their products.

dalbasal 5y ago

"From farming to high finance products and services are substantially more influenced and optimized by specialist professionals than they were in 1990. Increase efficiency like this throughout the national and global economy is how lawnmowers and A/C units can be sold on sale for $100 and still make a profit. " You can find examples of this, but overall, I dispute the generalization. I think quality/price improvements have been monumental in some areas, stagnant in others. Computer related products have gone crazy. It's not more for less though, it's "much more for a little more." The market grew a lot and a produces a hell of a lot more. Even that isn't the norm though. More for less, even less for less, are uncommon. Farming and manufacturing.... None of the capitalisation, gene patents and such of recent generations is anything like basic green revolution tech, in terms of productivity growth. Farming is different. It uses less labour, more capital, but it's not producing much more efficiently. The price of farm produce isn't falling, quality is not rising. Same for most manufacturing, especially basic manufacturing. Most of the last generations' gains were made by employing cheaper employees in cheaper places, not reinventing manufacturing techniques. So, low end, high volume manufactured goods got cheaper, but a car still costs what it costs. Good quality appliances generally do too. The quality of housing has gone up, but prices are often very high. Education... we have more and arguably better, but more expensive. Medicine... same. More and better, but more expensive. There's a pattern here that's more complex and interesting than the average.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Computer related products have gone crazy. It's not more for less though, it's "much more for a little more." I thought we liked Raspberry Pis on HN.
dntrkv 5y ago
> Education... we have more and arguably better, but more expensive. There are many thousands of people on this forum that have gotten a free education and in turn, one of the best careers in history from that free education that would never have been possible until recently. I'm seeing more and more people (that aren't designers and engineers) are forgoing classical education and making a great living for themselves just by utilizing the freely available information on the internet.

dougmwne 5y ago

I had a moment like this recently with, of all things, a snorkeling mask. It was one of those full face masks with a big snorkel sticking out the top like a unicorn's horn that popped on the market a few years ago. It is a marvel. It took all the downsides of the old masks and ingeniously fixed them. Full mouth and nose breathing so you can breathe naturally and comfortably, an airflow pattern that pulls dry air over the lens and keeps it fog free, a wide-angle lense for a better view and less claustrophobia, and an ingeniously designed system of valves that keeps water from flowing into the snorkel and uses your exhalation to push any leaked water in the mask out the bottom. All together, it eliminated the underwater panic I would usually have to fight through while snorkeling and made me feel like a dolphin. No way a product like this could have been made without the collaboration of a lot of very skilled professionals.

david422 5y ago
That's got to be some person with a snorkeling hobby and they are just thinking "there's got to be a better way than this".
treis 5y ago
These are somewhat dangerous as the additional airspace allows CO2 to build up. I haven't seen good studies either way, but there's lots of anecdata out there of people reporting symptoms.
- phreeza 5y ago
  That doesn't make sense to me, why would a larger space allow for more CO2 buildup, if there is a connection to the outside?
  - treis 5y ago
    There will be some mixing of fresh air through the snorkel but that's a small opening and a long tube. It will still mostly be the air you exhaled. For a traditional snorkel that's a small volume relative to a breath but not so much for those masks. Plus, if you're diving under the water a traditional snorkel will be completely purged while these masks will retain the air.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

> missed the elephant that is ... Definitely a big deal, but mostly invisible on the demand side. You're talking about improvements to the supply process; the article is about what consumers experience.

tootie 5y ago

I think he missed a lot bigger elephants. Things like the massive reduction in global poverty levels or eradication of polio. The global decrease in crime. We reversed ozone depletion and massively decreased the mortality rate for HIV. This post is more like a list of cool products we have now when we have monumental human development achievements no one is talking about.

inglor_cz 5y ago
Polio is not eradicated and with Taliban taking over Afghanistan, likely won't be anytime soon.