Overpromising and Stumbling Bambis
I’ve recently found myself on the receiving end of countless text messages, pub questions and conversation starters about the rising number of emergent ‘new things’ in the world — fundamentally different devices which challenge the ways in which we ‘do computer stuff’. This little essay isn’t a piece of deep analysis of these products (you should subscribe to Benedict Evans for that), but I’d like to explore the spirit and culture which is embedded within them, the ways in which we’re assessing them, and how we all seemed trapped in an unhelpful loop.
Despite the well documented progression of technology in the last decade, our personal product portfolios haven’t really changed a great deal. There’s been plenty of evolution and new features, but nothing really ‘new’ has emerged in quite a while. For the general consumer, technology appears to have largely settled into a five device ecosystem, consisting of phone, laptop, desktop, tablet and watch. There’s perhaps an argument for smart speakers here, but voice UI hasn’t become the dominant interaction mode for anything much beyond selecting playlists and setting pasta timers. These devices may have sold in significant numbers but they haven’t fundamentally changed much of consequence. The TV has also played a major role in our collective tech experience of late, but the devices themselves have remained remarkably stable for years (barring occasional misadventures into curved, rolling and 3D displays), with most of the change coming via the pipes which feed the content. Broader still, perhaps games consoles could be a contender (and it’s true that they represent a much larger industry than most of us think), but the devices themselves haven’t formally shifted from a box plugged into a TV since the Atari days. There’s also been a slew of ‘connected things’ (doorbells, cameras, smoke alarms, etcetera) which have all played their part, but still feel like appendages to the Big Five.
When we take an objective look at these devices, they all feel remarkably mature. Whilst the iMac and other ‘one box’ solutions adjusted our expectations of desktop computing, the essential premise has remained largely the same for decades: a large screen for productive work, paired with a powerful processor and a keyboard and mouse for input. The laptop emerged around the mid-eighties and its design has remained reasonably ossified for well over two decades. The iPhone debuted in 2007 (an eyebrow-raising 17 years ago) and tablets arrived shortly afterwards in 2010. ‘Smart watches’ have been around for over fifteen years in various forms, before Apple began rapidly swallowing the market from 2015. Since their introduction, these five devices have shifted in their shoes and added countless new features, but it’s mostly been a tale of iteration and evolution. The fundamental experiential changes we’ve felt over the last decade have largely come via huge amounts of back end work, content acquisitions, hardware refinement, partnerships and software integrations which escape the everyday interest of the average consumer. Ultimately, the world of personal computing devices has become mature, anchored and stable, but there are signs that things might be set for a change.
There exists in all of us a tendency to think of the present as the ultimate expression of how things will be in the future. We pride ourselves on our decisions in the present. We believe we’ve considered all the available options and think that the current selections we’ve made seem rational, right, and proper — but that’s a trap. We all find it difficult to think of reasons why we might change the ways in which we do things today, how our habits will develop or how our attitudes and preferences might evolve… but change inevitably happens, and it’s undoubtedly coming. When we look back at the 1980’s, the overwhelming majority of us does so with a little smirk. We laugh at the design of their homes, the huge Walkmans with their clunky buttons, the monstrous VCR’s, the fashion, the music and those dumb electric carving knives, but those things all made some sort of reasonable sense at the time. They were tangible representations of the available technologies, tastes and habits of the moment, and as uncomfortable as it may feel to us today, you can be assured that the next generation will look back on our world and smirk equally as hard. Perhaps provincial nightclubs will host ‘2020’s nights’, where punters will dance ironically to Taylor Swift and Drake songs wearing crocs and hoodies, supping on White Claws and making heart emojis with their fingers. I’m not sure what the product portfolio of a big tech company will be in 20 years time (and I’m not big on predictions), but I’m almost certain it will involve some ‘new things’. So what might they be, and what might they do?
In the last eighteen months or so, there’s been a rush to integrate Artificial Intelligence capabilities into almost every piece of technology. Some of this integration is interesting, and some of it represents little more than re-badging exercises from desperate companies hoping to draft behind the cool kids at school. In parallel, there have been advances (some of which may be significant) in the fields of virtual reality and what we’re encouraged to call ‘spatial computing’. As a result, we may be on the cusp of something a little more interesting than new software or services, we may be about to see some genuinely ‘new things’. The justification for the creation of these ‘new things’ might simply be the all-consuming capitalist thirst for something novel (and there’s a healthy dose of that going on I’m sure), but I’m hopeful that these emergent technologies might be leading us down some genuinely interesting paths.
Over the past year or so, we’ve seen some of these things start to break cover. There was the launch of Humane’s AI Pin , the Rabbit R1 mobile device, and most recently Apple’s Vision Pro headset, each of which represents an exploratory move towards a new way of doing things with a new type of device. Following the launch of these three things, the public response has been mixed at best. Whilst tech companies still have their fans, their plaudits and excitement have been largely drowned out by mockery and lampooning.
Hah! my existing thing does all of that already!
I can’t imagine what anyone would need that for
There’s no way I would trust a new company with that kind of data!
Look at those begoggled doofuses wafting their arms around in the air!
This is symptomatic of everything that’s wrong in the world
…
When I moved to the USA in 2012, Silicon Valley felt like a freewheeling, optimistic, innovation-orgy. Everywhere I went people were pitching ideas, making investments, launching products, beta testing, hiring, expanding and generally throbbing with excitement. Whilst this was frequently tiresome and occasionally grim, there was an overwhelming feeling of positivity about the place which was often infectious, even for a cynical Brit like me. The transformations promised by new technology felt impressive, and sales and subscriber numbers exploded accordingly. Emboldened by seemingly unrestrained growth, tech companies large and small began to position their products not only as new ideas but as culturally important moments, ruptures in the status quo or accelerations of our species. Their presentations became increasingly slick and the language became self-assured, bombastic and confident. The audience was hungry, investors were keen, and money, goodwill and excitement flowed freely.
But then things changed.
Today, there’s an underlying tonal shift around here which is impossible to ignore, and the public opinion of technology organizations has become significantly more dubious, hesitant and suspicious than it was. This is a reflection (in part) of the broader culture of distrust which has resulted from more than a decade of the tech industry tripping over its own feet, misleading customers, breaking laws and testing our collective tolerance whilst draining the silver from our pockets. Trust and confidence in technology companies is clearly at a low ebb, yet in the face of this shift the tech industry has largely maintained its culture of overpromising, exaggeration and hyperbole from a decade ago. The ways in which these companies launch new products — and the ways in which the media talks about them — is often so over-the-top, gushy and breathless that it’s easy (and fun) to point and laugh. Further down the financial stack, the competitive venture capital scene has resulted in a similar culture of plucky startups over inflating the impact and maturity of their ideas and mimicking the behavior of the companies they admire so much. As a result, product announcements have become a remarkably repetitive genre — and have spawned a fair amount of parody — yet it’s somehow become de rigueur to follow the same old dance steps. From Shark Tank, to Sand Hill Road and Shenzhen, new product presentations have become little more than pantomimes, with the same overpromising, over enthusiastic, magniloquent lines wheeled out over and over again. Far from exciting the public, this now appears to represent an ongoing provocation, resulting in a collective, reflexive response.
In truth, genuinely ‘new things’ are almost always unresolved, unrefined and uncertain. They aren’t optimized, their true purpose is unclear, their features are underdeveloped and their propositions haven’t yet crystallized. New technologies are often exciting, they can present new possibilities, novel ideas can emerge and new conversations can form… but we have to acknowledge that these conversations are in their infancy. These things may look like finished products (and are frequently presented as such) but they’re mostly little more than stumbling Bambis, finding their feet and blinking in the sunlight as they figure out the world around them. If they’re to find their true purpose they’ll need an environment which is patient, willing to give them time and let them make mistakes, yet the tone of these launches remains crammed with tall talk, transformational promises and resolved product language which they can’t back up. What’s resulted is an industry which appears to be gummed up in an antagonistic waltz of overpromise and impatience.
I don’t think any of the products above are enticing enough for me to make a purchase just yet, but I’m happy that the seal on these new thoughts has been broken, and that people are still open to experimenting. For the record, I’m rarely an early adopter of new technology. I usually fall somewhere on the upslope in the comfortable ‘early majority’ phase of the adoption S-curve. I’m not sure I’d consider myself a techno-optimist either, and I typically occupy the skeptical side of any argument about novel gadgets, software and services. In discussions with thirsty innovators, I find myself urging caution and clarity, and I’m made anxious by bombastic claims, optimistic projections and energetic positivity. That said, I surprised myself recently by buying (or rather investing in) a ‘new thing’.
The Poem/1 clock is a kickstarter project from the BERG co-founder, technologist and writer Matt Webb, which feels like a bit of new thinking escaping in the form of a product. It’s a clock which tells the time, but does so with an AI generated poem which changes every minute. What a pointless thing! What a waste of money! Why does anyone need this? This is everything which is wrong with the world! We should scoff at it, roll our eyes and mutter into our beers… but what it embodies is the emergence of a new line of thinking which I find interesting. For me, it’s fun enough, resolved enough and well priced enough to warrant the investment.
Upon diving deeper into the Poem/1, its ill-formed edges become more apparent, and Matt is refreshingly open about this. For example, the poems are generated by the underlying gpt-3.5-turbo model from OpenAI, which isn’t free. Rather than setting up some sort of complicated subscription model (which would turn off most customers, including me), Matt composes the poems centrally then shares them out to the individual clocks. The cost of this service is rolled into the price of the device, and new poems are guaranteed for 5 years. It’s not a perfect solution, and it’s clearly a workaround which will need development if a product like this were to hit the big time, but it’s a step towards a different type of thing. This clock is a stumbling Bambi, let’s be patient, give it some time and see where it goes. Kickstarter is a platform which actively requires this kind of honesty about risk and uncertainty (after being burned numerous times by dodgy products and unfulfilled promises), which is refreshing when compared to the majority of professional players in the tech space, who would rather gloss over such shortcomings and try to dazzle with ambition.
The relationship between new technology and the public has become remarkably toxic, and I can’t help thinking it’s holding us all back. If I had to choose, I’d prefer to be part of a culture which encourages exploration and experimentation, but that will require a change in our collective patience. Flaws are part of every new thing, and we need to remember that. If we’re to make progress we’ll need to give these ideas time to marinate and evolve, the third generation of this ‘new thing’ might well become a vital part of our everyday lives if we don’t kill it first.
In parallel, I’d like to see ‘new things’ launched with significantly more openness and honesty to their flaws. We need to get beyond the notion that uncertainty is a weakness. Let’s find a way to present new ideas as a representation of the best we can do right now, and that we’re open to change. Any ‘new thing’ won’t have got it right the first time, and there should always room for pivots, evolutions and changes of direction.
If both factions are able to concede a little ground, we might be able to create a different — and perhaps more productive — culture around technology. We’ll encourage more people to try new things, and that could lead to some incredibly useful developments in the ways in which we live, play and work, and I can’t help thinking that would be a little bit better than where we are today.