Question Everything

Do you ever think about why you're a Republican or a Democrat? Do you wonder why you belong to your religion? The sad thing is, you most likely make these choices based on emotion rather than logic. You most likely took the religion of your parents. I guess you lucked out that your parents' religion is the one true religion. How do you choose what political party to vote for? Do you research all the issues and decide for yourself or do you just choose whatever party is popular among your friends and family? Everyone wants to fit in. Do you watch and read the news to confirm your pre-established bias or do you try to educate yourself? Are you afraid to change religions or political parties because you'll be ostracized from your current social circle? Are you afraid to change your views because you can't accept the fact that something you've believed your whole life might not be true? I'm not telling you to join a certain political party or a certain religion. I'm asking you to question why you belong to your party/religion. I'm asking you to talk about politics and religion with people who have a different point of view than you. I'm asking you to go outside of your comfort zone. I'm asking you rid our society of ignorance. Change must come from within ourselves. In the words of The Science Channel: question everything.

Mailbox: How to efficiently allocate a scarce resource

There have been quite a few blog posts (and a million more tweets) complaining about Mailbox’s reservation system. For those of you that don’t know, Mailbox is an iOS email app that is slowing letting users in on a first come first serve basis. Over 500,000 people have signed up which is creating quite the queue. Some people have accused Mailbox of using the line to build hype or to make users feel exclusive, but that misses the point. Mailbox wanted to ensure that they had a solid rollout with no hiccups. Having hundreds of thousands of users hit your servers for the first time can be brutal. Even worse, a crash on launch day could have been fatal for the company.

I understand why the company established a reservation system - to slowly add users to the app instead of all at once, but I can’t help but think that there is a more efficient way to do it. As an economist, I would have loved to see a decreasing price strategy. For example, on launch day, offer the app for $20. Few people would pay for it, but those who really wanted it would. Then over time, decrease the price as you gain confidence that your servers can handle the load. In a couple of days you could lower it to $15. In a week $10. In a few weeks $5. Eventually price it down to $1 or free. Pricing in this manor would allow those who want to try the app the most (those that derive the most utility from it) to jump ahead of those who just want to poke around the app for 5 minutes and then delete it. Additionally, this would result in the same exponential user base growth that Mailbox is shooting for.

Sure this pricing strategy would get its fair share of complaints; after all, very few iOS apps are priced over $5. It would be fascinating to compare user engagement over time with price paid. As far as I know this has never been done. It’s also worth mentioning that this pricing would actually give Mailbox a source of revenue because as of now, they have zero.

As a side note, I love Mailbox. It has completely changed the way I think about email. I can’t wait for the iPad and Mac clients. You really should check it out.

Politics in the Animal Kingdom

C.G.P. Grey has a series of four videos on YouTube that help explain different issues with voting in a democracy. All of these videos were published in 2011, but I find them extremely relevant giving our current fiscal problems here in the United States.

Video 1:

The first video explains the problems with first-past-the-post voting. In this system of voting the person with the most votes wins the election.

Video 2:

The second video explains a the alternative vote. It is commonly known as instant-runoff voting. The alternative vote could help the United States move away from the 2 party system and allow room for a third party. This video resonates with me given that I am unhappy with both parties.

Video 3:

The third video explains gerrymandering and a gives a few solutions on how to fix it.

Video 4:

The fourth video explains mixed-member proportional representation. It is an interesting voting system that the video explains better than I can.

Death of the Dock Connector

In October 2012, Apple introduced the lightning connector to replace the ten-year-old dock connector. It can now be found on the iPhone 5, iPad Mini, and the new iPad (4th generation).

I am more interested in how much longer the dock connector will live on. If you want to know why Apple switched connectors read Jason Perlow’s piece in ZDNet. Right now, Apple still sells the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and iPod Classic. All of these products have the older dock connector.

In 2013, Apple will introduce a new iPhone (for this article lets call it the 5S) and a new iPad (5th generation). These products will obviously have lightning connectors. Apple will also stop selling the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 4S will drop down to $1 on contract. Apple may or may not be able to sell the iPad 4th generation at $399, but for this thought experiment, it doesn’t really matter. In 2013, Apple will sell products with the dock connector.

In 2014, Apple will introduce a new iPhone (for this article lets call it the 6) and a new iPad (6th generation). Apple will stop selling the iPhone 4S. I cannot imagine Apple selling the iPad 2 in 2014, so the iPad won’t have a dock connector either. The only product left with a dock connector is the iPod Classic. It hasn’t been updated since 2009 and will be the last product available with a dock connector. This would be a good time to kill off the product.

The introduction of the iPod marked a huge shift for Apple. It’s sad to see it go, but Apple is a company that cannibalizes its own sales for the sake of future growth. In 2014 we will say, RIP iPod Classic. RIP Dock Connector.

(As a side note, there is no guarantee Apple will follow the usual schedule or naming convention of new products. This post is more concerned with when the lightning connector will fully replace the old dock connector.)