Electric bikes are vastly under-utilized even in European cities where they are safe and effective to use:
Mature: bike more than 100 years old, electric motors and batteries also mature.
Cost no money: saves a ton on money over a car
Was widely available and fairly intuitive for the average person to use: everyone can bike
Had no regulatory barriers or moral issues: clearly not illegal nor immoral to ride a bike.
Saved a lot of money and time: saves also time because there is no need for separate exercise.
Had an immediate payoff: you gain from day 1
Played relatively well with the existing format of meetings transportation
Appealing largely to people in the developed world with high access to information about useful new products and services: high traffic congestion is common there
Potential daily users in the hundreds of millions: even more, around a third of all persons are potential daily users
The only barriers are perceived risk (not clear if the risk of an accident is higher than the benefit from physical exercise in my opinion, it could well be net positive depending on where you live) and that you look “childish” and kind of weird if you bike to work.
I think electric bikes are a pretty good candidate! I own one and it was transformative for biking around Seattle.
The ability to trivially climb a hill to get a block away from the main arterial and bike on a little-trafficked road was a huge safety enhancement
It deals with even Seattle’s huge hills with ease
You can go 20 mph, which is often faster than cars, especially during rush hour
They are no riskier than a regular bike, and given my point about getting off busy roads, they can even be safer if used well
On reflection, I think my reason for thinking they are not quite comparable to zoom is the following:
E-bikes can be two things: a replacement for a car or bus, or a replacement for a manual bike. As a car/bus replacement, there is a clear tradeoff: they are a whole extra vehicle you must purchase, they are less safe, they are slower in many cases. As a bike replacement, there is also a tradeoff: they are more expensive than many manual bikes, they are very heavy, they become much worse than a manual bike if the battery dies, and they may at least be perceived as riskier or having fewer health benefits.
If I ask a bike-user or a car-user “why don’t you use an e-bike for the things an e-bike is perfect for,” I expect that a lot of them would refuse not on “it would be weird” grounds, but on “I don’t need to do that enough to justify the expense” grounds, or on “I don’t like the tradeoffs of replacing my car or my bike with an e-bike.” In fact, I think that would be the main objection.
Zoom, since it costs no money and slots in for little-no money with established ways of having meetings, truly offers a straight-up value add while requiring virtually no extra investment to start using it. And yet people weren’t doing it! Which is the crazy part!
However, I like the proposal and I think it’s pushing the conversation in the direction I want it to go, so I am going to say this motivates a $3 donation to AMF. Proposals that fit my criterion even better can earn the other $7.
I also asked ChatGPT, here are the six best ideas that it had (excluding electric bikes, as it was already my idea ;P) (cherry picked by me over 21):
Online education: Online education platforms like Coursera and Khan Academy were mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They also had no regulatory barriers or moral issues and could be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. Online education also saved a lot of time and played relatively well with the existing format of learning and education.
Digital wallets: Digital wallet technologies like Apple Pay and Google Pay were mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They also had no regulatory barriers or moral issues and could be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. Digital wallets also saved a lot of time and played relatively well with the existing format of financial transactions and management.
Wearable health monitoring devices: These devices, such as Fitbit and Apple Watch, are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They also have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save time and money by allowing users to track their health metrics and stay motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Online language learning platforms: Platforms like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save time and money by providing an accessible and effective way to learn a new language.
Home energy management systems: Devices like Nest Thermostat and Sense Home Energy Monitor are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save money and energy by providing users with insights into their home energy usage and allowing them to make informed decisions about energy conservation.
Collaborative writing and editing tools: Platforms like Google Docs and Microsoft Teams are mature, widely available, intuitive, and cost no money for basic usage. They have no regulatory barriers or moral issues and can be used by mutual agreement among one or a few people. They save time and make collaboration more efficient and effective, whether for school projects, business proposals, or creative writing.
Both of them are very reasonable, online education is accessible, almost free, and makes it possible to study even while holding a full time job, from a quick glance a great deal of your requirements are satisfied.
Digital wallets I am less sure about, I never used one, but they look really convenient and easy to use, but I would need more info on how secure they are before starting to use them.
Overall, I think all of these ideas kind of fit your point.
This is a nice use case for ChatGPT! In most of these cases, I think that where they don’t quite meet my criteria is in terms of the cost-benefit issue or the neglectedness part.
Online education is pretty widely used by individuals, exactly as we would hope. It’s neglected as a way to signal educational attainment, but that’s a problem that can only be handled at the level of corporate or university governance by recognizing Coursera certificates on CVs or building a university around online offerings. Digital wallets seem to have taken off pretty much in step with awareness and size of the user base. Wearable health and home energy management systems don’t seem neglected and they face cost-benefit questions. Collaborative writing and editing are already widely used, as are online language learning platforms.
I’ll throw in another $1 for creative brainstorming for a total of $4 awarded and $6 to go, but I want to save the rest for ideas more stringently meeting my criteria if any can be found.
In my opinion Wearable health is highly neglected because older people are less tech savy than young people, so they use it less than younger people, but they would also benefit much more from the technology. If a 20 year old wears a smart watch that measures and records heart-rate it is almost only for fun, if a 60 year old does it, it could prevent and inform about important issues, but the 20 year old is much more likely to actually use it than the 60 year old.
I think that’s a pretty good point, and it tracks with Steven Byrnes’ insight about bedwetting alarms.
Zoom costs no money, but the most it saves is time and annoyance. It might save lives occasionally, but there’s potential for wearable health to save lots of lives and prevent many disabilities. The cost-benefit ratio might be better than zoom’s, and yet people may neglect it excessively because it’s socially weird to do things like monitor your heartrate—or, when it’s available, your blood glucose—routinely using consumer electronics. As with the bedwetting alarm, we have this idea that we should only be using “interventions” like these when there’s already a clear problem, rather than as a way to prevent a problem or hasten a solution, and that seems to stem from social norms (“is this really such an emergency?”) rather than a rational judgment about costs and benefits.
That said, one of my criteria was “Had an immediate payoff,” and I think that neither the bedwetting alarm nor wearable healthy typically do have an immediate payoff (unless you were replacing an existing invasive glucose monitor with an Apple Watch noninvasive monitor, once that tech becomes available).
With zoom, all people were missing was the suggestion “why don’t we have this meeting on zoom” and the perception that “if we do, it will be seen as normal by all participants.” With wearable health, you have the added component of “I’m not even sure all this fuss and self-monitoring will even pay off in the long run in terms of better health outcomes, but I have to pay the money and attention costs right now.”
The delayed and uncertain cost-benefit analysis in individual cases is the reason that wearable health doesn’t meet my higher “stringency bar” for being comparable to zoom, even though I agree with you that there are probably a lot of users who’d benefit from it and who are neglecting it primarily for the reason that it’s not normalized.
Electric bikes are vastly under-utilized even in European cities where they are safe and effective to use:
Mature: bike more than 100 years old, electric motors and batteries also mature.
Cost no money: saves a ton on money over a car
Was widely available and fairly intuitive for the average person to use: everyone can bike
Had no regulatory barriers or moral issues: clearly not illegal nor immoral to ride a bike.
Saved a lot of money and time: saves also time because there is no need for separate exercise.
Had an immediate payoff: you gain from day 1
Played relatively well with the existing format of
meetingstransportationAppealing largely to people in the developed world with high access to information about useful new products and services: high traffic congestion is common there
Potential daily users in the hundreds of millions: even more, around a third of all persons are potential daily users
The only barriers are perceived risk (not clear if the risk of an accident is higher than the benefit from physical exercise in my opinion, it could well be net positive depending on where you live) and that you look “childish” and kind of weird if you bike to work.
I think electric bikes are a pretty good candidate! I own one and it was transformative for biking around Seattle.
The ability to trivially climb a hill to get a block away from the main arterial and bike on a little-trafficked road was a huge safety enhancement
It deals with even Seattle’s huge hills with ease
You can go 20 mph, which is often faster than cars, especially during rush hour
They are no riskier than a regular bike, and given my point about getting off busy roads, they can even be safer if used well
On reflection, I think my reason for thinking they are not quite comparable to zoom is the following:
E-bikes can be two things: a replacement for a car or bus, or a replacement for a manual bike. As a car/bus replacement, there is a clear tradeoff: they are a whole extra vehicle you must purchase, they are less safe, they are slower in many cases. As a bike replacement, there is also a tradeoff: they are more expensive than many manual bikes, they are very heavy, they become much worse than a manual bike if the battery dies, and they may at least be perceived as riskier or having fewer health benefits.
If I ask a bike-user or a car-user “why don’t you use an e-bike for the things an e-bike is perfect for,” I expect that a lot of them would refuse not on “it would be weird” grounds, but on “I don’t need to do that enough to justify the expense” grounds, or on “I don’t like the tradeoffs of replacing my car or my bike with an e-bike.” In fact, I think that would be the main objection.
Zoom, since it costs no money and slots in for little-no money with established ways of having meetings, truly offers a straight-up value add while requiring virtually no extra investment to start using it. And yet people weren’t doing it! Which is the crazy part!
However, I like the proposal and I think it’s pushing the conversation in the direction I want it to go, so I am going to say this motivates a $3 donation to AMF. Proposals that fit my criterion even better can earn the other $7.
I also asked ChatGPT, here are the six best ideas that it had (excluding electric bikes, as it was already my idea ;P) (cherry picked by me over 21):
Both of them are very reasonable, online education is accessible, almost free, and makes it possible to study even while holding a full time job, from a quick glance a great deal of your requirements are satisfied.
Digital wallets I am less sure about, I never used one, but they look really convenient and easy to use, but I would need more info on how secure they are before starting to use them.
Overall, I think all of these ideas kind of fit your point.
This is a nice use case for ChatGPT! In most of these cases, I think that where they don’t quite meet my criteria is in terms of the cost-benefit issue or the neglectedness part.
Online education is pretty widely used by individuals, exactly as we would hope. It’s neglected as a way to signal educational attainment, but that’s a problem that can only be handled at the level of corporate or university governance by recognizing Coursera certificates on CVs or building a university around online offerings. Digital wallets seem to have taken off pretty much in step with awareness and size of the user base. Wearable health and home energy management systems don’t seem neglected and they face cost-benefit questions. Collaborative writing and editing are already widely used, as are online language learning platforms.
I’ll throw in another $1 for creative brainstorming for a total of $4 awarded and $6 to go, but I want to save the rest for ideas more stringently meeting my criteria if any can be found.
In my opinion Wearable health is highly neglected because older people are less tech savy than young people, so they use it less than younger people, but they would also benefit much more from the technology. If a 20 year old wears a smart watch that measures and records heart-rate it is almost only for fun, if a 60 year old does it, it could prevent and inform about important issues, but the 20 year old is much more likely to actually use it than the 60 year old.
I think that’s a pretty good point, and it tracks with Steven Byrnes’ insight about bedwetting alarms.
Zoom costs no money, but the most it saves is time and annoyance. It might save lives occasionally, but there’s potential for wearable health to save lots of lives and prevent many disabilities. The cost-benefit ratio might be better than zoom’s, and yet people may neglect it excessively because it’s socially weird to do things like monitor your heartrate—or, when it’s available, your blood glucose—routinely using consumer electronics. As with the bedwetting alarm, we have this idea that we should only be using “interventions” like these when there’s already a clear problem, rather than as a way to prevent a problem or hasten a solution, and that seems to stem from social norms (“is this really such an emergency?”) rather than a rational judgment about costs and benefits.
That said, one of my criteria was “Had an immediate payoff,” and I think that neither the bedwetting alarm nor wearable healthy typically do have an immediate payoff (unless you were replacing an existing invasive glucose monitor with an Apple Watch noninvasive monitor, once that tech becomes available).
With zoom, all people were missing was the suggestion “why don’t we have this meeting on zoom” and the perception that “if we do, it will be seen as normal by all participants.” With wearable health, you have the added component of “I’m not even sure all this fuss and self-monitoring will even pay off in the long run in terms of better health outcomes, but I have to pay the money and attention costs right now.”
The delayed and uncertain cost-benefit analysis in individual cases is the reason that wearable health doesn’t meet my higher “stringency bar” for being comparable to zoom, even though I agree with you that there are probably a lot of users who’d benefit from it and who are neglecting it primarily for the reason that it’s not normalized.
I believe this in some domains applies to micro-mobility in general.