4 ms·
And that's leaving out Jevon's paradox, where increasing efficiency in the use of some scarce resource sometimes/often increases its consumption, by making the
by projektfu 2y ago
And that's leaving out Jevon's paradox, where increasing efficiency in the use of some scarce resource sometimes/often increases its consumption, by making the unit price of the dependent thing affordable and increasing its demand. For example, gasoline has limited demand if it requires ten liters to go one km, but very high demand at 1 L/10km, even at the same price per liter.
- hinkley 2y agoWhen people know the answer is always “no” they save their energy to plea for stuff they really can’t do without. You start saying yes and they’ll ask for more. The trick is as always to find out the XY problem. What they really need may be way easier for you to implement than what they actually asked for.
- eru 2y agoSometimes you can just embrace it, instead of looking for tricks. If you are in the business of selling any product or service, then it's great that finding a way to make it cheaper also generates more demand for you.
- hinkley 2y agoI’m confused, because the “not trick” I’m talking about is the boondoggle created by giving people exactly what they ask for, making nobody happy and jamming up your throughput in the process.
- eru 2y agoTo be specific: if you can find a way to make fridges for half the previous cost, and you can sell them for three quarters the previous price, you don't want to talk people out of buying more fridges. In fact, them buying vastly more fridges is exactly what you want.
- its_bbq 2y agoAnd not necessarily the long term result anybody wants
- eru 2y agoSame happened with Walkmans or desktop computer, or mobile phones etc. It's pretty normal that people want less of stuff when it's expensive, and more when it's cheap.
- its_bbq 2y agoI mean I'm general, I'd rather buy fewer of the same things no matter if it's cheap or expensive if I didn't have to, and it would use less resources. Juicing someone's quarterly sales report is no good reason for me to buy a refrigerator, yet here we are.
- eru 2y agoOh, you would already have other reasons to buy a fridge. They are really useful to keep things cool, and thus keep your food and drink from spoiling. But (in our example) the high price of a fridge has so far kept you from buying one. Luckily, prices have recently been falling, so you can finally afford one. You look forward to a new era of less spoilage and less food waste in your life; because you'd rather use less resources. (The electricity to be burned by the new fridge comes from your rooftop photovoltaic, of course.) --- Does this make sense? You need have no regard for anyone's quarterly sales reports.
- projektfu 2y agoYeah, but it is also second-order effects where the efficient use of a resource opens it up for more uses as well as for more exploitation. Perhaps this is most visible with farmland. Efficient use of water (center-pivot sprinkler) causes much more land to be arable, causing more use of that same water as well, depleting aquifers.