Comments on: Just-enough, a new trend in the works (or, why Paul Allen’s Octopus is really an Albatross)

By: Seamus McCauley

Seamus McCauley — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:50:31 +0000

"Paul Allen, the Microsoft cofounder, has a yacht that is 416 feet long. It cost something like a quarter of a billion dollars. It carries two helicopters. It's so large it cannot dock anywhere on the French Riviera. (That's why it needs those helicopters. They are the only way to get to port.)"

Grant - you're saying the guy who founded Microsoft has built something expensive and cumbersome that isn't compatible with the pre-existing public interface standards so requires an expensive work-around to use? Good lord! How out of character for him.

By: Avinash

Avinash — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:38:21 +0000

I think this also has to do with the world is flat theory. In a day, we can be anywhere in the world. The Internet gives us the prism with which to connect everywhere and anywhere. Our ambitions are smaller because our limits grow smaller. Money does not equate to true power as much as it used to, and as time goes by that principle will become more and more evident.

By: MHB

MHB — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:32:35 +0000

Great stuff. It's in sync with the Taoist concept of eating till 'almost full' or the questions raised by autistic economics. Having lived all my life on the east coast, and moving at that extreme speed, lately I've been wondering if I need to step off and spend time in a slower place to rejig my values. Till then, I'll be tilling my Brooklyn backyard, sans cellphone.

By: Maureen

Maureen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:51:37 +0000

I normally don't drink any sugar in my tea.

But Honest Tea is gross, nasty stuff. You couldn't sweeten that with five gallons of sugar. The high price is just an added insult.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:19:39 +0000

A quick link to the Swedish word 'Lagom' as it perhaps neatly sums up the idea of 'just enough.' But enough already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom

By: srp

srp — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:48:25 +0000

Long ago, Tibor Scitovsky wrote about this stuff in The Joyless Economy. One of his points was that rational entrepreneurs should be utility maximizers, which means they should balance profit and leisure (or other non-pecuniary items) rather than maximize profits.

I don't think it's quite right to assimilate a desire for limited fame with a desire for limited material consumption. Fame always had its costs; but the spread of cheap cameras, the Internet, and the culture of mass-participation mudslinging have raised those costs.

On the other hand, material consumption may run into pure satiation effects. After someone has a great house, great car, eats wherever they want, and can travel for pleasure, a desire for additional stuff has to be cultivated deliberately (getting into wine collecting, say, or taking up expensive sailing pursuits). Now that serious and frivolous intellectual and artistic content are cheap and widely available, another reason to worry about having an enormous income stream has been cut down to size.

I'm deeply skeptical of the environmental motivation being more than skin-deep, an ephemeral status signal. Most people don't care if they're hurting the environment, but some of them want to look like they're not. None of them have much of a clue about how their actions really affect nature or their fellow man.

By: Brad Berens

Brad Berens — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:49:38 +0000

Nice post, Grant--

I've been thinking along complementary lines with regard to the media business: at what point is it "enough" when it comes to being a media creator? Can you create media, sent your kids to private school, but not be a bazillionarie? A while back I hoped for the birth and growth of an artistic middle class:
http://mediavorous.com/archives/yes-box-office-is-up-this-summer-but-dont-get-comfy

Realize that we're talking about nothing less than the reformulation of the American dream...

Relatedly: there's a new book by Jeffrey D. Sachs called "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet" that hits on similar themes and might be worth reading. I just ordered it. There's a nice interview with him from yesterday's Marketplace:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/21/common_wealth_q/

All best,

Brad Berens

By: Tom stinson

Tom stinson — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:17:28 +0000

This is an interesting idea. In recently reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of food, I was struck by the idea that big companies (with distribution beyond local or regional) are anathema to sustainability, and wise environmental policies. Admittedly, that's a little overly-simplistic, but Just-Enough seems to fit there...

Thanks.

By: Scott Smith

Scott Smith — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:59:21 +0000

This trend, which I've been calling JGE (Just Good Enough) has been emerging for some time outside the US, in more resource-strapped and/or emerging economies, where JGE is better than the VLIA (Very Little If Anything) that was on offer before. As hundreds of millions of consumers create a broad base of demand for JGE elsewhere in the world, supply chains, designers, tastemakers etc will begin to adjust to it and bring it more strongly into the US. Look at cars, furniture, clothing today in the US and West vs even five years ago - more mid-to-low end, not very durable but aesthetically sufficient products are out there for consumption.

See more: http://www.changeist.com/changeism/2008/1/10/race-to-the-bottom-of-the-pyramid.html
http://www.changeist.com/changeism/2008/1/8/do-consumers-care-about-operating-systems-and-applications.html
http://www.changeist.com/changeism/2008/1/7/china-india-and-pragmatic-technology-design.html

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:53:25 +0000

So people are starting to include direct psychological costs and benefits into their economic calculations? Good. There's hope for us yet.