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==The problem== | ==The problem== | ||
===[[Rent-seeking]]=== | ===[[Rent-seeking]]=== | ||
We’re yet to find a [[reg tech]] provider whose business model does not involve ''extracting [[rent]]''. This they commonly justify by reference to the ''value'' their product provides, which they equate to the ''total cost of labour and infrastructure it saves''. Historians, and lovers of crushing irony, will enjoy how this resembles the [[labour theory of value]], in that the | We’re yet to find a [[reg tech]] provider whose business model does not involve ''extracting [[rent]]''. This they commonly justify by reference to the ''value'' their product provides, which they equate to the ''total cost of labour and infrastructure it saves''. Historians, and lovers of crushing irony, will enjoy how this resembles the [[labour theory of value]], in that they equate the value of their service to the net amount of labour it requires — or in this case “saves”. | ||
You might ask how | You might ask how they could know. You might also ask what you gain by cutting the wage bill of some school-leavers in Sarajevo, if you are paying most of it away to a guy in Old Street for code he bought from some school-leavers in Bucharest. Especially if it means he can then intermediate your process for the hereafter, adding nothing but the cheerful chime of a clipped ticket each time his machine spits out another document, or while each one collects dust on his server?<ref>This is called “hosting” and it seems to be a cash cow. But aren’t terabytes of data storage, like, ''pennies'' these days?</ref> | ||
Forgive us for being underwhelmed, but wasn’t the promise of the [[Information technology|information revolution]] something ''grander'' than that? Weren’t things meant to be ''free'', not just ''marginally cheaper but a lot more complicated''? | |||
===[[Iatrogenic|The cure and the disease]]=== | ===[[Iatrogenic|The cure and the disease]]=== | ||
'''''[[Iatrogenic]]''''' — it is a cure that is worse than the disease<ref>This is a super concept and if you haven’t come across it you owe it to yourself and {{author|Nassim Nicholas Taleb}} to read about it in his superbly bombastic {{br|Incerto}} series.</ref> — in that in promising to ''alleviate'' the [[tedium]] of the [[boilerplate]], pernickitiness and low-level wrangling over [[representations and warranties]], technology throws open the window | '''''[[Iatrogenic]]''''' — it is a cure that is worse than the disease<ref>This is a super concept and if you haven’t come across it you owe it to yourself and {{author|Nassim Nicholas Taleb}} to read about it in his superbly bombastic {{br|Incerto}} series.</ref> — in that in promising to ''alleviate'' the [[tedium]] of the [[boilerplate]], pernickitiness and low-level wrangling over [[representations and warranties]], technology throws open the window on a panoramic vista of low-level tinkering. The cost of infinite pedantry has ''dropped through the floor''. | ||
In the olden days, the [[Anal paradox|anality]] of contracts was bounded by any lawyer’s natural capacity — deep, to be sure, but ultimately finite — to hold a superstructure of piecemeal salutary conditionality in her head. Nowadays, with a laptop and an adeptness with JavaScript, that limit has gone. [[Contract]]s can be infinitely, infinitesimally varied and endlessly customised. We can cater for any [[Pedantry|predilection]], whim, [[For the avoidance of doubt|doubt]] or [[proviso]]. We can put one in every line, if that is our wish. We can command that a space between words must be, not not be, ''italic''. <ref>When the great [[J. M. F. Biggs]] first isolated and documented a [[Biggs hoson]] in the wild — the celebrated [[bold full stop]] in a “Boats” [[repackaging]] — it was a once-in-a-generation event.</ref> | |||
This should not be a surprise. The | This should not be a surprise. The word-processor did not ''shorten'' legal discourse. [[Email]] did not truncate our communication. Andy gaveth, but it was not Bill, but ''our yen for verbal diarrhoea'' that tooketh away. | ||
Note the misalignment of interests | [[Technology]] promised a revolution but appealed to our basest instincts. [[Technology]] made contracts ''worse''. What reason is there to think it will suddenly stop now? | ||
It won’t if the [[reg tech]] [[Rent-seeker|rent-seekers]] have any say in it. Note the misalignment of interests: vendors have a direct incentive — in fact, a ''need'' — not just to fix, but to ''continue'' “fixing”, because “fixing” is how they get paid. They design their disintermediating machines to only disintermediate ''so far'': users must remain dependent enough on their code, their systems and their expertise, that they have to pay an annuity for it. To pay ''[[rent]]''.<ref>I have lost count of the times that that a tech provider has told me users cannot have edit or configuration rights on a piece of software. There are two explanations for this, and neither is edifying: one is that the software is so fragile or poorly designed that allowing a user to tinker with it will make it break; another is that it is so basic that allowing users to see it will reveal how simple it really is.</ref> | |||
===The fault in our stars=== | ===The fault in our stars=== | ||
Our friends in the [[management consulting]] profession (also [[rent-seeker]]s, needless to say) encourage this disposition through the dogma of [[outsourcing]]. Here the gist is: if you have a convoluted process that is costing you time and money, [[Outsourcing|outsource]] it, to someone better specialised, incentivised and remunerated to do it, who can do it cheaper, better and — thanks the magic of {{author|Adam Smith}}’s invisible hand — at the optimal cost. In this way do we ''entrench'' [[rent-seeker]]s, by building an entire ([[rent-seeking]]) infrastructure around this newly articulated [[process]] — with its own [[middle management]], [[operations]], [[compliance]], [[internal audit]], [[procurement]], you name it — yes, even [[legal]] — without ever asking whether the process was that important in the first place. | Our friends in the [[management consulting]] profession (also [[rent-seeker]]s, needless to say) encourage this disposition through the dogma of [[outsourcing]]. Here the gist is: if you have a convoluted process that is costing you time and money, [[Outsourcing|outsource]] it, to someone better specialised, incentivised and remunerated to do it, who can do it cheaper, better and — thanks the magic of {{author|Adam Smith}}’s invisible hand — at the optimal cost. In this way do we ''entrench'' [[rent-seeker]]s, by building an entire ([[rent-seeking]]) infrastructure around this newly articulated [[process]] — with its own [[middle management]], [[operations]], [[compliance]], [[internal audit]], [[procurement]], you name it — yes, even [[legal]] — without ever asking whether the process was that important in the first place. | ||