I'm not suggesting that every form of consumer automation is an
inconvenience. For instance, using an ATM is quicker than a teller--for whom
you had to fill out the paper work--and internet banking is a real boon for
someone like me living out in the country.
However, I think we should just forget about systems where the consumer does
as much work as the displaced employee. We need those jobs for people at the
low end of the skills spectrum.
----- Original Message -----
From: Cordell, Arthur: #ECOM - COMÉ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Victor
Milne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: February 13, 2000 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy
> Bravo! Self service is no service at all. We just access part of the
> bank's (or supermarket, or gas station, etc.) mainframe, and doing the
work
> ourselves, complicate our day and put people out of work. Amazing. And
we
> call it progress.
>
> arthur cordell
> ----------
> From: Victor Milne
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy
> Date: Saturday, February 12, 2000 12:22AM
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bob McDaniel
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: February 11, 2000 6:58 PM
> Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy
>
>
> [snip]
>
> In this way may evolve a rationale for paying people for consuming. This
is
> where some similarity with the Tobin tax perhaps becomes most explicit. We
> may see emerge what some writers have already anticipated: micropayments
on
> numerous purchases, i.e. payments based on bits of information. While
> individually miniscule, in the aggregate the pay out may be substantial.
>
> I think we should also be paid when we do the corporation's work for
> them--as in self-serve gas stations, wading through voice menus, and the
> soon-to-come automated supermarket checkout.
>
>
