I've spent the past few weekends catching up on a stack of magazine subscriptions. One article that I've spent a lot of time with is Wired's February 2008 cover article on "Why Things Suck." The article lists 33 common things that suck most.
My firm belief is that when we come across "things that suck," we often find that they lack the Challenge Dividend. In other words, they don't have enough pressure to improve. So here's my take on Wired's things that suck because of little or no challenges:
- Air travel sucks because only a few players dominate the market, due to a mix of high costs of entry, government regulation, and big players' dominance of hub city markets. Economists call this an oligopoly. The upcoming Delta/Northwest merger will lead to more suckiness.
- Evite sucks because it has established a large user base that is hard for an upstart to overcome. It's free but increasing is monetizing its user base by putting more and more ads in front of us.
- Medical Records suck because there is no market incentive to make them simpler and more portable. Special interest lobbying prevents the government from making any real progress.
- Printer Cartridges suck because manufactures use lawsuits and complicated parts to prevent third-parties from entering with innovations and lower prices. They lose money on the printers and screw us on the refills.
- Radio sucks because big companies like Clear Channel scooped up many stations (reducing competition) and took out costs (laying off local DJs and inserting software), while programming music for the lowest-common denominator listener.
- Roads suck because the government usually pays for them and has cut its budgets. Meanwhile, big trucking companies that tear down roads pay the same cost as you and I - zero.
- Ticket Purchasing sucks because Ticket Master has a near monopoly on the market.
- Traffic sucks because market forces don't create incentives to travel in off-hours. See roads above.
So the next time you run across something that sucks, think about whether there's a challenge or pressure that can be added to improve the situation. In the meantime, take a vote on Wired's things that don't suck. A few of my favorites are "a rooftop bar in spring" and "your kids being born."
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