Skip to main content

On misplaced incentives

 A few years back a recipe site would be like this:

Google recipe --> Click --> Find recipe

Now, it is like this:

Google recipe -->Click-->Irrelevant story of the recipe -->Irrelevant picture ---> Still more irrelevant stories about the recipe --> Please check out my other recipes-->Useless version of recipe ---> Some more random pictures or ads --> and after what seems like 17 scroll downs is the recipe hidden away in the footer. 

Obviously scroll through links pay in ads or page views I guess.

Last week I went to the bank for a minor service issue. One of the "customer service" persons helpfully walks up, hears my problem so empathetically I actually make the mistake of thinking it is solved - and then helpfully says, "Sir, close the account and open another one"

And after waiting for ages - when nobody could care about - suddenly on realising I was there for something more than a service issue - a swarm of people became interested in me - the kind that happens when you step out of a railway station and a swarm of taxi drivers want to take you to your destination at an exorbitant cost. Clearly bank folks are incentivised to open accounts, deposits, insurance and what not. 

In both cases the incentives are misplaced - leading to the wrong kind of behaviour. 

But, why is it so difficult to someone to think differently? 

And thats why I like those who share recipes on instagram without all the random introduction and family stories and fake nostalgia.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zero to One

Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a nice read. (Yes - if I sit down to write a book review - the book has to be worth it - and usually good - so most of my book reviews are about good books.You can stop here if that's the information you seek.) Where this book scores is in contrarian thoughts and contrarian questions that make you think. It starts with a four big lessons learned from the 90s dot-com crash that is, Make incremental advances, Stay lean and flexible, Improve on the competition and Focus on product, not sales. Just as you warm up to it, he says, the opposite rules are more correct - which are: It is better to risk boldness than triviality. A bad plan is better than no plan. Competitive markets destroy profits. Sales matters just as much as products. And finally leaves with a simple definition of contrarianism - it is not to oppose the crowd (or follow a smaller or newer or older crowd) but to think for yourself. "All happy companies are different"...
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti networking year

I dont usually go out of my way to network. But over the last few years, I ensured that I spend some time creating new connections. It is a small fragment of my time that goes into it, but what I realised was that some of those networking events were not really working out. I also took time to post about the things I do (mostly on Linkedin) and here (nobody reads this - this is more of a note to myself).  It seemed to be the same set of people saying the same set of things. So, this year I have decided to step back.  Unless it is a truly unique event, I wont be going to any event - and thats how the unconference happened.  Unless it is a really significant update, I wont be posting about it.  And spend time creating and doing the things I like to do. Perhaps read more. Or write more. It is April now and I have done well so far.  Managed to read a few books. Actively working on a few creations. And then some. Lets see.  So for all I know, I might write less ...
Post a Comment
Read more