The Power Of Making People More Mobile
from the roam-if-you-want-to dept
Fred Wilson has an interesting blog post, looking at some of what he considers the "greatest inventions" of his lifetime, and notes that three of the four (ATMs, EZPass and cellphones) are really all about making him more mobile. It's an interesting, but important recognition. The power of mobility has had a tremendous impact on many people's lives -- and yet people often don't even recognize how much it's changed their lives. The ability to be able to travel freely has opened up so many new possibilities for both business and entertainment -- allowing people to do things that simply weren't possible before. One of the things that screws up companies looking for new business models is that they focus just one what they can sell directly, and forget that they may be enabling people to do many more things -- and that enabling of mobility can be one of the most powerful selling point they have.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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The guy's all spleen, no brain
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Penalty Box
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Mobile? No way ...
Just because car makers have advertised "Freedom as Mobility" does not make mobility the new word for freedom...
It isn't about mobility. Its about not having to do things I don't enjoy doing - like standing in lines. The difference is subtle, but if this article is supposed to inspire companies to persue the market then it is an important difference. I'd hate to see some idiot try to sell me rocket skates so I would be more mobile.
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Exactly
It's also nice to be able to retrieve cash, our use my debit/credit card anywhere in the world, but I don't go anywhere in the world anymore than I would otherwise.
It's nice to have internet access wherever I am in the country/world but, again, it doesn't incent me to travel more (though I do take my computer with me everywhere now).
And VPN access to the corporate network just incents me to stay home when it snows, or rains, or I've a cold coming on.
I do my CHRISTmas shopping online, at home. I spent less then 20 minutes at any mall this year. And that is 20 minutes more than a whole gaggle of folks.
Less and less people will be traveling. The world is not getting smaller it's getting bigger. Man it's a long five miles to the mall when I can just shop online, and wow I don't want to travel a huge 30 miles in the snow to work when I can connect via the VPN. And a bank branch...what is that...do they still have those?
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Technology actually could be making things worse for us, we are always connected, so our vacations are interrupted. Co-Workers call my cell phone while I am at home, they would never do so something as rude as calling my home phone number for the same issue. ATM's are hard to argue with though.
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That's not worse
But either way, it's not worse, it makes you a more valuable employee, more productive, more likely to make more money and less likely to be let go.
It's all good. I love life in this era.
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