Work From Home, What Now

We've either loved it, hated it, want it to continue or yearn for it to end. Work from Home is here to stay in some format. Ever the inventor or solution Engineer.. here's how I'd do it

 

An Idea for the Next phase of Work from home. 

The Issue is:

Work from home means a reduction in costs, travel costs, lunch costs, both time and money, time means we can do other tasks around the work tasks. need to drop off your kids? pick up a parcel from the post office? pop into the hardware store to get some fixit gizmo for your house? You don't have to give up work, or take a day off for life. You can do both.

Work from the office is needed. collaborative tasks, inspirational discussions, watercooler talk leads to communication channels leads to productivity boost. You can't get that via Zoom, Teams or Skype.

 We need both. We can't afford to have part-time mums/dads working from 9:30am to 2:30pm, they need the 2 incomes to pay an overpriced mortgage, After-school-care costs half of your income, so why even bother to work and lose your kids. Its catch-22.  

Most of us do things to do with work or work related on Saturdays anyway, So maybe there is something there..

Wax on, Wax off

How about, if we work one day IN, then one day OUT, and spread out our 40 hours over 6 days.

Each office can allocate, do you want a Mon/Wed/Fri office, or a Tue, Thus, Sat office. 

With approx. half of companies coming into 'work' on alternate days, the roads will be less congested, Cafes will be less stressful. Lunch-times will half less wait times.

 Working from home has been shown for people who do work, to get work done. Focus, no distractions from colleagues, you can crack out that report, that project, that document.

Collaboration can happen in the office, on the IN days, work can get done on the OUT days

As an Example:

Break the work week up differently, 

Work on "Monday" arrange meetings for Mondays, get into the mindset.

Hybrid Tuesdays, workplace or home, get stuff done, be online for meetings, collab,

Wednesday Crack on, from home. chew through the work, get it done, if you get stuck work on something else that needs to get done.

Thursdays back to the office, Meetings for how it went, What to do next, what to arrange next,

Friday Hybrid, but emphasis on the workplace. Need to get something finished? go home work it out, do it.

Saturday, if you had something happen, and need to make up your hours.

MT, WT, FS, S. 

Teams will need to sync up, but you often have teams needing to use the projection room on the same day, so this will also relieve inter office bookings, as you've halved your office footprint.

Reduction in office costs, which are often as much as 30% of a businesses costs, means a reduction in the price point, which increases sales, with economies of scale means higher profits. 

WIN WIN. 

Stomach Clamps aren't the solution.

 I got into an argument, railing against the whole point of why people don't like fat people.

Its not the fat, its what fat represents

A person who eats well, looks after themselves, often does so at the expense of temptation. Sure we could all just eat all the unhealthy delicious foods that exist, but that leads to being unhealthy, sweats, aches, cramps, back pain, any pain and inflammation. We 'could' enjoy it, but we're mature enough to know its bad and we should not do it.

Its like any of the Seven deadly Sins. We'd love to indulge in them, but they are ALL destructive.

Society would grind to a halt if even 25% of the population started indulging in the 7 deadly sins. But gluttony seems to be getting a hall pass, and thats not fair on the rest of us.

Why? health care system, and Insurance systems are more akin to communism, many pay, so the few that need it are covered. I pay $2000 a year for my insurance, so 'if' something drastic goes wrong, I don't need to pay $2mil. But where does the 2mil come from? the 1,000 other people that also pay $2k, and don't get sick that year.

What I'd like? is that 1,000 other people don't get sick, so my Insurance can drop to $1k a year, or better yet, 9,000 more people don't get sick, and we can all pay $200 a year.

So, how do we collectively get 9,000 other people to not be sick? To eat healthy, do some basic exercise, not smoke or drink to excess, and.. oh no.. breed with healthy people, so we get rid of genetic diseases.

So a Fat person? that represents my health insurance going up, because that person can't stop themselves from over eating, and eating food laced with chemicals.

Now, I understand, the food industry is to blame for much of this. tobacco companies bought out the s**t food companies and produced even s**tier food, which is addictive, and so very bad for us. Not bad enough to be banned, bad enough to make your last 10 productive years, into under productive, and your last 20 years, into drawn out, painful years, that drain the economy and give very little return.

You know what old people are supposed to be doing? educating out kids, with life lessons. keeping cafes afloat from frequent daytime visits, so they're around when we get out of work. being productive in secondary and tertiary ways. Not sitting in hospitals and old folks homes, doing nothing.

So when someone gets a stomach clamp, I have mixed feeling. They are making themselves (forcibly) healthy, so maybe that contributes better to society.

But here's the 2nd half of the rant. (remember, this channel? about an old man ranting, not specifically making any sense?)  

A person with a stomach clamp, behaving like they 'did it' is like a racer having cheated by taking a shortcut, declaring themselves a winner. Its not the destination, its the hard work and effort you put in to get there. 

The whole point to losing weight, is to prove to yourself, and others that rely on you, that you have the fortitude, the strength, the grit, the determination, to do something about it. Not to sit around moping and using up air.

I am a lazy S.O.A.B. I know it. I'm not going to complain to anyone that my life sux, because I take responsibility for the fact that I will choose to sit down on a weekend and watch Youtube, instead of working on my yard.

I feel pride in my work, if I can be assed, and I prefer people to praise my hard work, not my results. 

I was fat, I was 120kg, I ate bad food, and half of it was because I didn't know any better. When I found out I was being tricked by companies who just wanted my money, and had 0% care of my actual health. I changed.

Ok, I'm tired now. might go back to bed.   

Hitchhikers guide to AI, my eureka moment

 Sometimes things come together in my head and Pazza, its a new thought, I can sense it.. often I forget it, life gets in the way, sometimes my phone is in my hand and I'll quickly record it. This time, I'm at my PC, so I'll spit it out here first in the universe. 

What if we're in '42' but not the way we thought it.

When the ultimate computer (in Hitch hikers guide to the universe) was asked the great question, what's the meaning of life, it thought for several thousand years and came up with the answer '42', and because the beings that asked the question didn't understand (I mean, c'mon its pretty obvious right) they asked the computer for an explanation, it replied, it can't give a meaningful answer because the questions was not meaningful. So, they asked, what's the question?

The computer claims it can't answer it, its too complex, but it can help build the next computer that CAN. So they build this huge "computer", spoilers, its earth, and humans are the 'chips'

So, I'm watching some kid genius, hears a song once, and then breaks it apart and re-writes it, and while I'm doing that, I'm using AI to build out some lists for work, and also some images for my book, and I get this idea..

What if WE were meant to be the AI. 

What if.. each human, was meant to be a 'token' in an AI engine, building up to an eventual actual 'I' (though, to an outsider, we would be artificial). We come together, randomly, and pop out a new token, which learns some things, advances human knowledge a microstep, and then it, being more superior, pops out the next token to advance the knowledge set again.

We are AI tokens, to US we are slow. but to some external super computer that we are all a simulation inside of, WE, our lives, are mere blips, microseconds, to building up this new AI model. 

This Kid, he's a super piano player, he's able to do for music, what AI cannot, control it meaningfully. 

AI right now can create 'random' music, and even check that it matches 95% what we CALL music, but its random, it can't repeat itself for the same song, and change it ever so slightly (you can call up a new AI that its job is to do that, but thats not the original AI that made it)

You can ask the AI to make a picture of a nice fresh red apple, and then you can ask to take a bite out of it.. but the computer won't access that original apple and 'take a bite' it will re-imagine a brand new apple and the bite of that apple, it might be 90% the same apple, but the human eye can spot the 10% difference and know, its not the same apple.

So, now that we've invented the answer to the original purpose to us being here, will it all end? if AGI nails actual AI, will our program shut down?,

The Great RESET For the People.

 

The Great RESET

For the People.

Not for the big wigs, not for the fat cats, not for the uber rich, who, no matter where they are at, they have the skill and talent to pull themselves out of any hole that the govt might dig for them. (and if they don’t, they didn’t deserve to be there in the first place)

Sure, they’ll scream and shout, as they should, its part of human nature. 

We warn Society, the banks, ‘this is going to happen, you have no ability to stop it, the human race needs this to happen.

All credit cards are frozen. you can pay them down, but you can’t buy anything on them any more. No more personal credit. Its strangling society, it’s been strangling us since we invented it. Borrow tomorrow's money to buy stuff today. Steal from your tomorrow, and hope you have no ‘needs’ then? HA!

Next, we spin a wheel, of the top 5 banks. one takes the hit. everyone in that bank loses their jobs, all the money in that bank pays off the credit cards. clean slate. if its not enough, the next bank in the list does it, then the next, until eventually all debt is wiped out, and all the big money lenders are destroyed. All the debt those banks have? are distributed to the other banks : You get to survive? well sure, but you have to take on the debts of the one that died.

Let that stew for a month, then we start looking at the rest.

Car loans: If you car earns you money, that is a good investment. If not. repo, you do not want average Joe spending money he doesn’t have on a car he doesn’t ‘Need’. If he wants it, he buys it, no loans. save up. 

There are a few million university papers on why this is better, why saving for items, decreases the prices. people will willingly spend someone else’s money (including their own future self) on something they want, but will be reticent to spend their own money, now, unless they need it.

So the manufacturers will bring down their prices in order to sell their goods.

Then also, people will want goods that last longer, get their moneys worth.

So the manufacturers will ensure the goods have a longer shelf life.

Its a vicious cycle we’ve gotten into, ‘free money’ = poor decisions = cheap quality goods = throw away goods = new appliances every 2 years = constant trap of paying down debt from having to rebuy all your household appliances every 2 years, because nothing lasts anymore.

I still have a 1979 Westinghouse fridge that works. nothing past 1990 still works. It all dies, on purpose. we know they do this on purpose. They can sell everyone a new fridge every 5 years, even though we have the technology to make fridges last 50 years.

Do you see how we spiral the drain? How we need to correct?

The Last one is the Mortgage.

In Australia, housing prices have gotten far out of control, the rest of the world is up there, I don’t understand how Australia has it the worst other than this:

At some point in the late 90s and early 00s, we convinced ALL kids they needed a university education. Looking at the American system, we can see why this is a very bad idea. The lack of Trades people, with skill, is hurting.

If all our ‘smart’ kids go off to be office workers, and we leave the trades jobs for people who a) didn’t fit the schooling system (square pegs in round holes) b) didn’t have the socio economic ability to attend Uni, and chose not to, or rarer c) were not smart enough. They entered the trades.

Because of the negative connotation of being a tradesperson, the smart ones had to ‘dumb themselves down’ to fit in or move on to other jobs.

So the lack of skilled and smart tradespeople is rare.

Housing requires trades people, poorly skilled ones take more time to do the job, and make mistakes, which cost money. So, the building industry starting costing more. people demanded better skills, so the builders' unions started certifications. which cost money. lots of money.

Housing prices reflect the costs of building.

But, since prices were starting to go up in the 80s, people started doing their own work. this meant shoddy workmanship, which mean accidents which meant insurance costs, so those insurance guys got together with those unions, and now its illegal to do your own work in many areas.

So you HAVE to have licensed contractors, under a properly qualified builder. and the demand for that increases as more work needs to be done, and less qualified people to do it. 

Low supply, high demand = higher prices.

Long story short, trying to find builders to do your house in 2 years? = premium prices = everyone is doing it = higher prices.

For 1000s of years, people could build their own house to live in, staked out some unused land, built it over 3 months, more if you had friends & family. cost you 500 man hours. 

You used that shelter to survive and built a better house over the next year or two, 2000 man hours. 

Your kids used that shelter to ‘live’ and build a better house, but still was only 2000 man hours. 

Now, the average house requires a person 60,000 man hours. not because it ‘needs’ that much, but a 30 year mortgage is a lot of office work.

This is a hard pill to swallow. trying to reverse the whole mortgage industry is near impossible. people need a place to live to be able to go to work. they need running water, gas, electricity, on top of shelter from weather, and enclosed for warmth.

Halting Mortgages, forcing people to 'save' will take years, and the suffering for people to attempt this would create massive unrest and riots. Its not tenable. there is no replacement, Halting Car Loans means more people catching the bus until they save, reducing the bus 'costs per person' and increasing employment of transport workers, people can use the alternative. But halting New homes? where will the next generation live? with their parents? Who will be able to save enough to buy? and when?

Banks also, pay interest on accounts, based on money they earn on business loans and mortgages. Without mortgages, the pinch will be so much, storing money in a bank will be practically useless, and since now we've become so reliant on electronic banking,  how could we even consider this.

The Only Solution I see is recreating the building industry, allowing people to do courses, for free, online, so they can build their own house, for themselves. They can't sell it, they can't insure it, but they should not be blocked from building it. If you can build a decent house, following the rules, inspected to be sound, you can insure it and sell it. You can spend 20 years, adding, refining, tweaking, and making sure its compliant. it'll cost you man hours, and not much more.

People in Europe are building their own houses, properly, filming it on youtube, making enough money to help pay for the house, yet still build a house for $50k. You can't even get a single room renovation for $50k in Australia. I've had my bathroom, laundry, toilet and kitchen quotes to be renovated in a proper style, not cheap IKEA crap, (which by the way, an IKEA kitchen which will fall apart in 10 years, costs $10k) a Proper kitchen for $55k, a proper bathroom for $45k. Yet in France, my friend did an even bigger kitchen in the same style for $5k. wtf!?

So, once we can 'build' a 50k home, on (sadly this wont likely go down) $200k property on the edges of the nearby towns of a capital, the demand on those million dollar places will go down, then maybe in 50 years, things will settle to a more realistic 3x income prices.. 

Eh, maybe I'm dreaming. of the old days, after the WWII reset

IOS is Married, ANDROID is a player

This Article, I wrote, in 2017, but didn't publish for what ever reason, now with AI marrying us in deeper, I felt it more relevant, so I'm publishing the Original, then adding edits/notes at the end.

 Working around all these young kids arguing about which system is better, Apple or Google, Mac or PC, iOS or Android, reminds me when we were kids about if transformers or gobots.. after constant bickering and arguing, I think this old man noticed something in what they are on about...

Married or Single

For years, decades, centuries, young men (and probably women too) have argued about the freedom of being single vs the safety of being married, the loneliness of bachelorhood vs the depression of complacency. The construct of all arguments is looking at the flaws of the opposing view and the benefits of your own view, while ignoring the flaws in your own and benefits of the other, this is never going to stop, but what we can learn from it is understanding how to argue better.

IOS is being Married
Apple has been the bastion of safety, no viruses, Apps must be approved before going ahead, they have limited memory so as to ensure decent code, no chances of going outside of the protocols, but this means that things run smoothly, efficiently and rarely crash. This is great for the average user who just doesn't want their phone to explode or get bugs or have problems, users need a safety net, the knowledge that nothing is going to change.. except when change is needed, and a whole new phone comes out.. because a refresh to life is good for you.

[2026:] 

Marriage is like iOS.
Marriage is the bastion of monogamous relations, no viruses, Activities must be approved by both parties, but also society, before being engaged in, yes that might limit their choices and budget, either party must not engage in activities outside of the marriage, but this means that both parties, parents and children can rely on the marriage as a support structure to all, and society as a whole. This is great for the average citizen who wants to know their partner is not going to cheat on them, leave them alone with the kids, allow them to starve or be homeless. The female being on average more caring will be there for the emotional needs of the family, while the male, being more aloof will be able to fend of dangers, and bring home food. Things won't change, unless the female has a need for change, because society shows her new things she has to have, and society says is good for you.

[2026:]  

Both are more expensive in the long run.

reverse everything I said and you have Android..

Android is being Single

Android has the freedom to roam the marketplace for games you want, and even 'make your own', sure they're not specifically checked by the Android network, google play does a fair job of filtering out the common bad guys, but some get through, worse, so many Android games and even apps are filled with adverts, you think your getting a decent game, but the extra costs means you often have to abandon that awesome game, because it chews up all your time with ads. You can step outside the safer markets for those indie game, they are often free, but you have to be more scrupulous, you cannot trust the game isn't stealing your data, infecting you with viruses, infecting your contacts lists. 

Being Single, can be like Android

Here the Analogy breaks down a little, [but only if you've never travelled]. Google play is a safe-ish environment, you have a fair understanding of the rules of engagement at a bar or club, safety requirements when you first get intimate, your relationship progresses enough you drop your guard to allow them into your heart, and if they are decent, you progress, and if they are not, they take advantage of you and break your heart, you break up, and have to look all over again. The main problem is, modern feminism has spoiled so many middle aged and young women into thinking they deserve everything and don't need to do anything in return, this is like adverts in games. The constant requirement to re-run the relationship, through a ringer, just to keep it going.

[2026:] iOS: Now, with AI in your phones, tracking your every move, its like the partner has lost trust in you, and is installing monitoring programs, to make sure you don't cheat, in which I mean, cheat on your preferred shopping, and by that I mean 'their' preferred shopping. You must buy apple and apple approved fridges, gadgets, pets, insurance, etc etc.. its worse than being married, 

Can I say, Feminism is to relationships, like the enshittifcation bill, the DMCA 1201 is to modern devices?

Now, interestingly, if you travel, outside of google into the realms of SDKs, and in real life, into other countries and cultures, (as I have, clocked 44 countries to date) you come across some very VERY different concepts.

In Games and Apps, you can find.. get this.. games which have NO ads. No payment expected, its a working app that does what it says, without fail. JUST, some of them do it to mine your data, some, do it because the developer is an awesome person, some do it to impersonate your phone, take out loans in your name, and infect your friends with the same virus, from your phone list. For these apps, you HAVE to be careful, due your homework, due diligence. 

The same for girlfriends and brides from other countries.. in some countries, the girlfriends culture expects the man to provide, not just for her, but her whole family. If you marry into her life, you better check her brothers and cousins.

I know guys who bought a nice house, the family came to help paint, clean, sort, transport goods, help buy furniture, 2 beds, 3 beds, more, suddenly the guy has a house of 9 people, and it was supposed to be his retirement home. they chewed through half of his retirement fund before he got wise.   

But, if you go to the right countries, learn the language, the culture, you can find the most wise, most gentle and kind partners, that know how to be an equal half, how to make your life wonderful either by caring for you, or creating a caring environment, supporting each other. In these places YOU are the virus, that needs to clean your attitude up, be a better person, you don't deserve this god/goddess, so you better do better for him/her now.

I heart a funny joke in this vein:

The Perfect Life, Australian/American Man, Russian Woman, English Cottage, European Food (insert Spanish, French, German, Italian for your flavour)

Hell: Russian Man, American/Australian Woman, European Apartment, English Food.

This was told to me in the late 10s and was even then slowly becoming irrelevant as more American men were getting weaker in nature, and now Australia too, Also, I think this discounts cities, as human nature in a city is worse by all accounts.

Explaining jokes sux, but if you didn't 'get' it:

Imagine a Rugged Australian Man who treats women with respect, vs a Rough Russian Man who drinks his paycheck away and abuses women.
Imagine a Beautiful Country Russian women, who treats her husband with respect, vs a Fem-nazi American Women who expects everything, and gives nothing.
Imagine a beautiful English Countryside, a thatched roofed cottage, flowers in the garden, hens in the backyard, gorgeous painted windows and doors, vs a conformity grey apartment, down a smelly side street, 4 floors above 16 neighbours, at least someone arguing loudly somewhere in the building every day.
Imagine, All the delights of seafood, pasta, carefully prepared meals, time taken to prepare, eat, drink wine, enjoy friends, vs the English sausages and Mash potatoes, seated at the table, quietly eating.

Don't Ever Sell - Housing

 Caveat: I used to sort out mortgages for people, as a jog. Mortgage refinancer. I saw hundreds upon hundreds of applications. Interviewed people, talked to them about their finances, what they wanted, what they did. Now.. 20 years later, those thoughts have bubbled up, and I have some insights.

The Argument to not Sell.

Regardless of how the rich get richer, which I'm sure enough people have vlogged and blogged enough about, these are my thoughts on just logic and math and loans and life.

You: 1950s, have a job, a decent enough income to apply for a loan. You've gone through all the hoops, saved 20% and bought a house. Your Income is $3000 a year, and houses cost $9k (I'm averaging from across multiple sources, and rounding off for readable math). So since the advised payment was $1k a year (one third to one quarter of your income, but for simple math we'll go a third) you'd have paid it off in 15 years, dependant on you getting pay rises, interest rates, investing a little into your loan or not, and other small issues.

Lets say 15years. Its now the early 1970s, your income has climbed to $4000, and houses cost $16k. you're house is paid off, but it cost you $12k to buy it. consider.. don't compare the $16k you can sell it for, compare the $9k price tag (and the $225 stamp duty, and another $25 in bank fees)

You paid $12,250, for a $9k house. In 1970s terms, your $16k house cost you $21,700.  

You 'can' sell, you'll probably get $16k for your house, and be looking to upgrade to a $20k house, only needing a $4k loan. That may only take 5 years to pay off, but you might have paid stamp duty on the new house of $500, capital gains tax on the $16k for $2k, So, this new house is costing you $100 a year in interest, for a total 'upgrade cost' of $7k. BUT remember, you've "paid" $21700 to own this house, you're $5k equity in the hole, now with the new $7k, you're equity is $12k backwards.

How is it possible to ever make money on a house?

Well, its super tricky, and likely you never will, but if YOUR house is worth $21,700, while the rest of the market is $16k, THEN you could break even on the sale. Likely though, to do that, you'd need to not just maintain the property, but invest in it to make improvements, BUT since that costs money, and we all know, you'll never truely make back what you put in, you'll be push a rock uphill. 

Pity we can't convince the govt, that capital gains tax, doesn't take inflation into consideration. 

Lets say, your grandpa did this in the 1950s, and you're sitting in the 2010s, inherited the house, and are thinking about selling. 

That house in 2014 is now worth 300k, your income is $55k, so even after paying inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and income tax, you're looking at a take home of 2 years paycheck.. Thats worth it right? 

well no, a) because of all those taxes, b) because that's your heritage, c) you're giving up the family wealth, that could support your family for generations, just so you can make some dumb purchases? (lets be real, unless your an avid investor or businessman, in which case you probably already know this, you're not going to spend it wisely)

Most rentals go for 5% of the property price, so over 20years you'll earn back your houses worth, again. Better yet, take out a loan ON that house to buy a 2nd house, rent that out, now you can deduct the interest from the house, from the taxable income. Make repairs, even improve the house, comes out of the taxable income (and might increase rent). Use some of THAT money for your dumb purchase.

Long Term

Consider, Had your grandpa been informed of this knowledge, in 1970, he's have bought a 2nd house, instead of selling.  

Your parents, instead of paying rent to some other person, could rent out this first house, and help pay off the mortgage. This likely means grandpa could have bought a 3rd house, 10 years later, just before retirement. If you have a uncle or aunt, they could have rented that one.

By the 1990s, your family would own 3 houses, instead of paying $5k a year in rent, it'd have been invested in the family houses. now, not needing to even GET a mortgage, your dad and uncle, could both, use the equity in the houses to get an extra house each (though, in the 90s interest was so bad, maybe they would have held off) but lets say, split the difference, they bought 1 extra house, put both  their 1/4th incomes into it.. 7years and it'd be owned (even at 15% interest as it was)

by 2000, you are born, and you already own a house to move into when you're in your 20s. in the gap between then and now, your dad and uncle have bought two more houses, renovated the other four for wifi, cable, aircon, insulation, etc. and had enough left over for yearly holidays.

Your grandpa, likely passed on (god rest his soul, sorry for your loss) created a legacy for your family, you don't pay rent, but instead contribute 1/4th your income to the family (trust?) to build a healthy portfolio of property for your kids. your family owns 8 houses, lives in 4 of them and rents out 4 of them to also contribute to the trust.

This.. by the way, is what I referred to at the top, about how rich families exist. When grandpa passed, all houses, re-evaluated at worth, passed on to the family trust, pay no capital gains (because you don't sell) nor inheritance (you didn't inherit) you don't pay mortgages or rent, ever, and your trust borrows money, spends it on new houses, and gives you all tax free bonuses (new cars? holidays?)

p.s. this is all just conjecture and opinion. be smart, talk to lawyers and accountants about setting this up for yourself. everyone has difference circumstances and life events to deal with.  

 

You, Me and AI

Rambling Thoughts: When ever a new technology comes along, there are people, adopters, who have an interest. Cutting edge interest. They are enthusiasts who wish to own one of the 'things', Engineers who want to understand how the new thing works, and if they're both, maybe want to make a better version. And then there is a 3rd group, who can be broken down into Entrepreneurs and Vultures.

How we need to be aware of AI, because of the Vultures

When the car came along in the 1800s, it was a great idea, to move people from location A to location B on any fairly flat surface, back then the uses may or may not have been thought of, from motorbikes, trucks, planes, pumps, submarines, the concept had so many uses. Each allowed a second, third, forth entrepreneur the ability to asses, create, test it, go to market with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and become profitable. 

We had time to identify the market niches, varieties and discover if was a good thing or not to develop a company to supply a product, some stayed, some left, but over all we had a good range of products. It wasn't viable to cannabalise other companies. Some smaller manufacturers created cheap ripoffs of the market, but the cost to produce a car plant was very high, it took dedication and often govt inclusion to invent a local car to resist the imports. 

When the mobile came along, We saw a range of phone being developed by companies in multiple countries, and because of the ubiquitous nature of the mobile, many could create knock offs and replicas and cheap versions, Yet it eventually boiled down to two to three main rivals, and everyone else couldn't cope with the cost involved to stay relevant. Developing a major phone, and marketing it was expensive, if you were not in, in the early days, you would struggle to bring a product to market, and gain enough share to be relevant.

Today, AI stores are live. You can create a 'store' of a concept for an AI, and go to market, and because its new its still a good time to jump in. Yet, be aware that because its so easy to create a store, many people are going to create one. the barrier of entry is low, the flow of information how to create your own is high. The best will rise to the top, and if they price themselves right, will be the be all and end all of that niche. 

What do I mean by this.

If you create a Baseball AI right now, you might be lucky to create the right kind, the right style, maybe no-one else has thought to do a baseball AI, so you'll have enough lead time on the competition, to get your product working well. Price it within the market average, say $20 a month for now, and rake in a few hundred grand, to figure out how to do it better, price it a bit lower to maintain the edge on your potential competitors, and stay relevant, as it'll come.. The vultures will begin to swirl.

The cost to enter this market is low, extremely low, I doubt any $20 a month product will stay relevant beyond a year. The race to the price floor will be swift, maybe swift enough to kill off the whole idea, but you can be sure that the companies that stay afloat will have done one of two things. Sold out [data], or Consumed the competition.

Probably Both. 

Hold up.. Are you even aware?

Incase you've been living under a rock, the generic AI that was GPT 4, is so overwhelmed with data, its slowing down, so they decided to split it into sub sets of itself, based on specific topics, and instead of doing all the effort themselves, they're 'leasing' the whole thing to us consumers, to create our own niche AIs. 

You can upload all you know about baseball to your baseball AI and have it feed back specific information about existing games, or maybe predict future games, or maybe tell stories based on game stats, what ever you decide your app will do, and then you'll promote it to consumers, to use, and pay you for the advanced versions. They'll use it to make their lives easier, and you'll be providing data to GPT to they can train their AGI better. win-win, right?

But, this will only work for the 1st Baseball AI. and maybe the 2nd. just like Android and iPhone. There will be 2 camps in the end, BaseBall-AI and AI-Baseball. Each doing the same thing, with a slightly different feel. And all the rest of the world, won't have a chance to create a baseball AI because you've already done it. The barrier of entry will not be price, not be skill, or ability, it'll be recognition of who was 'first'. The cool kids will use the main one, and that'll be it. 

Are you going to be first?  

Ai in Me - story idea

 It happened, I managed to get my internal AI to work autonomously recently, 

I was in conversation, a boring average conversation. 

I just went through the paces, and realised I had done so, without needing to do any effort.

My internal AI managed to take over at last and do it all for me. 

It spoke about mundane things

It spoke of the weather and up coming events on the news,

I didn't need to.

My Social Life has become sentient. I can now retreat into my own mind and think more about more important things.

Its been a week and I barely noticed. 

I wonder if this is a good idea.

The Ever Swindling Supply

 1980s Christmas, for 24 days before, parents take to the shops after work, scrambling to find the toy their child asked Santa for, in hopes of getting that latest Barbie or matchbox car or science kit or light-up jump rope. Even on the 24th you could still make it to the shops to get it. Today? HA!

What's Happened?

Lets explore some of the problems I see, from supply chain to internet shopping, Santa's Letter to the night before Christmas, how stressful its amped up in the last 40 years.

December 1st, up go the decorations, before that, the Grinch would notice, steal into your house and damage things to need replacing, and you' have to double up on your spending for the year, Fear Not, no, lets stay the course and delay like good Traditional Folk to December 1st. 

Up go the Decorations. Out comes the Christmas Cheer, all the good boys and girls make up their Christmas list for Santa, post the Letter, having shown it to mum and dad for "spelling" So that mum and dad have enough time to find those toys in the stores.

Today, Shipping costs means the prices of goods, and this is 90% of goods for most places, are up as much as 50% from those shipping costs. That $30 toy you want to buy your kid, is $10 in shipping costs, if it were produced at the same cost locally, it'd have been $20. 

There is far too much choice, and at the same time, far too little ability. The cartoons that the toys are based on can come from a multitude of origins, which means the toys are not likely to be on the shelves for your kids, locally. So when little Susie says she wants a Masha and the Bear doll, well sorry, while the internet is world wide, that doll is produced for Russians.. good luck getting one of those these days.

Oh except of course, China probably does produce one of them, fake, cheap, will break in a week versions, and your kids will find that on google and ask Santa for it.

So what happens next, Your kids asks for the toy on December 1st, you quickly scan the internet that very day, and can take a chance on 21 day shipping for 50% markup, 14 day shipping for 100% markup, or 7 day shipping for 200% markup. 

Yeah, good luck if you kid takes 2 weeks to make up their mind, and another to write the letter, "Here daddy, can you post this for Santa, " on the 22nd "I want a Mongolia Sheep Herder doll, and a African Tribe Doll" which has a 31 day shipping and 2 day overnight shipping is 1000% of the dolls price, even if its cheaper than the barbies in Target/Kmart/Walmart.

So, what to do? How do you tell your kids that Santa couldn't get that doll in time, he can travel around the world overnight, and his elves (or Yetis) can make *any* toy. But he couldn't get *your*kids toys? 

Thanks Capitalism, Thanks. 

Today I learnt..

Its usually hard to pin point clarity. I think I did just now.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

I am not yet a wise man, I'm still learning. Yet today I spoke to another, the intent to help, but they were not of a mind to heed advice, and spoke ill of me.

And I thought. What an Ass. Why would he take my words in a negative manner.

I sought to placate him with words of the same meaning, but different views, so he might understand that I was not his enemy.

But, It was the internet.

And I thought.. maybe wise men don't speak, because they understand that fools with rebuke their words, and cause them harm, verbal or otherwise. Maybe in ancient times, Wise men were the ones who learned quickly to keep silent, lest the foolish king rain down blows upon them.

Yet, in today's world, there is not a backlash so harsh to keep fools quiet, so instead they bleat upon the world, drowning out anything of consequence.

I thought I would be a great orator, I look out to see what great orators exist, and they do not. The last that I can tell is Carlin, he's passed now, also, he was a Comedian.

So, Maybe that is the path to Oration. I just need to learn some jokes.

Yet, remaining silent? Its just not me. 

Backstabbed by the Business

When you're part of something, and then someone in that group, changes the rules on you, or makes things uncomfortable for you, you feel anger, betrayal, disgust. If its a project leader, and they can justify this, you might feel less of it, but its still there, but when a company, treats customers like cash cows, after they have been tried and true to your product, you are left feeling helpless.

The Problem at the end of the day, is, we have little to no power. We are nothing more than cattle, coming to the trough, unable to affect major businesses.

What am I talking about, and in what context..

What I'm Talking About:

When I lived in Russia, Moscow specifically, you had a large range of restaurants you could visit. You could walk to something locally, and have 2-4 choices, but since the Metro was closer, you could ride the metro 2-3 stops and improve your choices by 10x. 4-5 stops and you had another 30-40 choices. Since the Metro was travelling 100km an hour underground, you could cross the city from top to bottom in 40 minutes, and could choose, on one line, from more than a thousand locations.

To put that in perspective, In my home city, If I travel for 40 minutes, I could drive to the city for a choice of 100 places, and search the northern suburbs for another 100. My home city has 3600 places to eat, Moscow, over 20,000.

So?

So, Adelaide, and Moscow (inside the metro limits) are approximately the same in size, yet little Adelaide has a little under a million, and Moscow in the vicinity of 15 million.

The point is, in Moscow, that each restaurant has, within a 5km radius, more people that it can cope with, for a year of being open. It has no need to cater to the whim of every customer. It can't. The prices of those places are exorbitant. The Average Cafe served eggs on toast with a coffee for 500 rubles, at the time, 2009, $15. Not bad for 2019, if its a good restaurant, in a western culture, with people earning 30 an hour. But Moscow, 2009, 500 rubles was double the hourly wage of an office worker. So you'd only went to cafes on dates, (or so I thought).

Yet, due to demand, the cafes were packed, they put in more chairs than were legally allowed, paid off the inspectors to turn a blind eye, and raised their prices another 20%, and they still were packed.

In Moscow, 2008-2010, You could open a restaurant, without training staff, over charging, ignore all the rules of , well anything, and you'd still be fully booked for a year.

I was regularly sitting in a place, waiting staff nowhere to be seen, food was average, paying twice what I should, surrounded by people, wondering how such a place stayed in business, surely all these people would tell their friends how sh*te it was, and the place would be empty in a month? nope.. the social power of all those people would be barely 1%, and even then, half would still go there just to see if it was as poor as their friends made it out to be..

Bad Publicity is still publicity.

So, to my context?

In The world of Board games, we are under a glut of games, Kickstarter has provided anyone the opportunity to bring their ideas to the world. These games come out, they bring fun, sometimes, they bring opportunity, and its all packaged in what seems to be a great deal... til it turns out you were just being brought to the trough, fattened up for the slaughter, and if you complain about it, if you realise you are being duped and raise your voice and squeal, you're quickly kicked out.

For every unhappy customer, there are a hundred customers who have yet to take off the rose coloured glasses.

Here is a list of games, where the creator & publisher have screwed over their Kickstarter Backers

• Gloomhaven: $154.95 (down from $220)
• The City of Kings: $85.95 (was $180)
• Pandoria: $49.95 (was $100)
• Death Note Confrontation: $25.95 (was $50)
• Sunken Sailor: $9.95 (was $40)
• Gaia Project: $109.95 (was $170)
• Root: $69.95 (was $100)
• Vast The Crystal Caverns: $50.95 (was $90)
• Burger Up: $16.95 (was $50)
• Burger Up Expansion: $5.95 (was $15)
• Kanagawa: $26.95 (was $52)
• Shipwrights of the North Sea: $29.95 (was $80)
• Kepler 3042: $48.95 (was $100)
• History of the World: $62.95 (was $120)
• Fallout New California Expansion: $37.95 (was $70)
• Petrichor: $48.95 (was $90)
• Star Wars Destiny (Two Player): $23.95 (was $50)
• Palace of Mad King Ludwig: $36.95 (was $100)
• Clash of Cultures: $75.95 (was $140)
• Gen7 A Crossroad Game: $96.95 (was $160)
• Spring Meadow: $56.95 (was $100)

That there is $1000 difference. Anyone who has bought 24 games in the last 2-3 years on kickstarter, spending $2100 on games, to find out if they'd just stuck the money in the bank 3 years ago, and when the game came out on special, bought it now, and banked $1200 ($100 savings + $200 minimum interest) would be mighty pissed.

There are arguments, they would have been playing the game all this time.. well no, most of these games only came out a year ago, or less. Even if they played each game, played twice a week, in rotation, they may have not yet, at this point in time, played more than twice some of these games.

The Argument that the game would not have been published without them, yes, and that's the point. the KS backers are the reason why the game exists. The publisher should be rewarding their backers, ensuring their backers have a reason to back it, other than just getting a copy. (which as often as not, they don't, or its poor, or its broken, missing bits, damaged, rules are poorly written, etc etc).

Backing games, is somewhat a lottery. You don't always get great games, you don't always get anything, but you're in it to win it, you back 20 games, one will never come, 2 will arrive with downgraded quality goods, 2 will have strange rulebooks that don't make sense, but 3 will be great games that you want to play every weekend, and 1 will be an awesome game that always comes out to be played.

Just now, you could have waited til everyone said how great those top 4 games were, bought them at 50% sale, and not even bought all those other duds, and gone on holiday with your awesome game, and played with friends on the beach.

The Capitalism, the Commercialism, has infected the creative industry, again, and Its sickening. again. 

Sad State of Affairs

There was once a golden age, its time has come and gone, and the worst part is, those of us who grew up in that age, remember it. As time goes by, and things become less golden, the sheen wears off, it peels back to reveal maybe layers of lead, we start to fight, but its often too late.

At some point in time, we worked from 8 to death, we gathered food, tilled soil, fed animals, built our own farms, attended festivals, met friends, made enemies, had no expenses to deal with, just the gnawing stomach when times were lean and the fear of lean times when times were plentiful.

Then we left the farms, put on shirts, studied in school from 5 to 12, got city jobs to pay for food, and realised we had whole afternoons, lit with candles to entertain ourselves. Musical Instruments? Local friends? maybe some home-still juice? everything we needed.

But Winters were still cold, they needed wood from the forests delivered, or gas piped into the house. This cost money, so incomes needed to increase, so jobs needed higher pays, but through badly managed economies, we needed the elderly to leave work to allow young people to start, else they'd be unemployable, so now the retirement age came in.

Then we started to create entertainment, and whole industries of entertainment, but we needed money for entertainment, this meant more studies, so we went to school from 4 to 21, to get better paid jobs, but we needed electricity for entertainment, so we needed to create bigger plants, more power, more logistics, more grids, more networks, til now, its all one big network, called the Internet.

So, we're all entertained, so much so, that we don't have time for anything else, we're all connected, so much we don't want to connect.

Its like when I traveled overseas for years and years, I was not here, so when I visited, everyone wanted to see me, talk to me, visit me, because I was not available, but when I moved back here, 'we'll catch up' can mean not seeing friends for years and years, yet they live a stones throw away.

A Lack of something, creates desire for something.

Now, things have gone past this spectrum, we've passed through the eye of the storm, and things are taking a turn for the worst. instead of making lives better for everyone, we're reverting back to the old ways.

Old people, need to work longer to pay the bills, so they push for older retirement limits, this often provides governments with more income as unretired 60+yr olds are usually on the higher spectrum of incomes = more taxes. So the age of retirement creeps from 60, to 65, to 70.

Soon enough people will be working while in school, but because they're doing it all part time, they'll be in school longer, til 30 or worse.

They'll be unable to earn enough to start saving enough to create a nest, let alone a nest egg, so they won't be able to retire, as the prices of house climbs up and up beyond the means of any 30-40yr old.

The price of schools, education, healthcare, medical aid, living, gas, electricity, banking fees, transfer fees, it'll all go pear shaped as the cost to live will outdo the cost to die. the middle class will be squeezed, having children will be so expensive, only the top 1% will be able to put their kids through schools, the rest will go back to working menial jobs, curating videos or likes on entertainment social media for pittance, just to afford food, while living in sweat boxes.. better than outside in the cold.

The poor will be trapped in the never ending cycle of economical slavery, the middle class struggling to make do, with the rare few rising from the pile to greatness, giving hope to the rest, but its all part of the system in place to ensure the mass middle class don't rise up to topple the system. The few elite might cease to exist, as they slowly but surely put all the decisions into the hands of AI, too fast to be unplugged, the elite slip back down into the system themselves, unable to stop any changes.

Just like those babyboomers, realising now that they messed up so much, they're unable to make any changes, the system is a runaway train. The young are too engrossed in their mobile entertainment wallets to notice the chains being clamped around their feet.

How to escape? and where to escape to? remote forests? back to nature? I don't want to escape all of it, just the part where bills became more dominant than income, where people paid for entertainment, than make their own with their voices, their instruments, their hands and their minds.

The Goal?

I'd prefer a future where electricity is free, solar panels and watermills take care of it all. People work 20 hour weeks, study 10 more all their lives, can afford to buy a place to live by the time they are 30, so they can devote the next 20 years to something bigger than mortgages, bigger than themselves, 'Sundays' are forced offline, enjoy a full day off where shops and offices and banks and everything is shut, and TV is off and people have no choice but to get outdoors and just be.

Can we work towards that? please?

Kickstarters, You LIARS

I see you want to create something, and you need some financial help, thats great, how can I help? Money? Hmm, well, sure, but what do I get for my money? a copy of the product you are making, well that's fair. I'll pay for 1 copy, and help get my 100 friends to pay for a copy too, so you can produce it. How much each? $100? well, its a bit steep, but we love what you're doing, so sure, we'll all give you $100, we'll all talk about it, and help it, and grow it and be part of the community, so you can make your game.

within the month...

YAY, we funded it..

6-18 months later

YAY its delivered

3 months later, but sometimes at the same time...

What?! The game I lovingly helped create, and spent $100 on, and then another $20 in shipping, is at my local shop for $60? WTF.. HEY Kickstarter Guy.. Whats going on? You sold it to the shops cheaper than to US? I could have bought this for $60.. man this sucks, Kickstarter Sucks! I'm never going to buy anything from Kickstarter again.. B&*(&@#^%ds you screwed me.. how dare you.

Sound Familiar?

Welcome to Bannister Rails, where I act like an old man and have a screaming rant fest about things that annoy me. Sometimes I even go off the rails..

Kickstarter Scams and the Lifecycle of Funding Projects

I'm a Kickstarter Super Backer, this means I have backed over 25 projects of at least $10 each, within the last 3 years, or it was when I looked it up last. So I've had my fair share of the cycles of many projects. Of the 50+ projects I backed (maybe closer to 100), I have yet to receive half, some, because I only recently backed them, so their delivery is 2019 or 2020, some have yet to deliver, even though they said 2018 or 2017. Of those in the latter category, I think only one might not ever get made, and for kickstarter that's pretty good odds.

I've read about a few people who have backed four or more products, and have received nothing to date. Most of them have never backed anything again, and they have a right to that.

There was a time when I felt that backing anything on kickstarter was a coin toss if A), you'd get anything, B) you'd get something along the lines of what you were expecting, but poor quality in comparison to the hype, and rarely C) you'd get exactly what they said they were making (or even rarer.. something better)

As time has gone by, the vetting process of Kickstarter has enabled many various people to assess the project, let other know if its unlikely to back or not, based on their collective experience. As a result its much rarer to get nothing, you're pretty much always going to get something, yet are you going to get your moneys worth.

Some people get a bad feeling in their mouth about things, and they spew it out onto the forums of the next KS project that looks like it maybe, might, do the same thing that the last one did. Its an unfortunately cycle, but slowly we have begun circling the drainpipe of bad KS decisions, and while I hope it doesn't kill the platform, I'd prefer it dead than zombified version of itself consuming projects and spitting out filth before eventually rotting away.

What am I talking about?

In the beginning, you backed a project, you backed the project creators, you and a crowd, got together an mutually agreed to fund this project because of several reasons:

* You want to see the company succeed, if they produce this project, they are likely to produce similar projects in the future and you want to be on their mailing list and maybe get a discount for future products as an extra reward for helping build the company.
* You want the product they are making, there is a chance you might get nothing for your money, or a poorly produced product, but that risk is mitigated because you're getting something extra for your risk.

But whats happening now is out of sync:

* You're not being treated as a part of the process of making the product, you've being treated as a cash-cow by the company. Someone who'll buy their product, each and every time, regardless of the quality.
* You're being treated as a dupe, someone who is spending their money up front, because they are scared of missing out. where if they just waited, it'd come to them cheaper and faster.

How can I think/say this?

I engage in the board game community more than other KS communities, I have backed some books, some art, some minis and some tech, and each has their good and bad projects, but I have a majority of board games, so Its easier to pick on targets from that.. so here we go

Some companies have figured out they can produce a half ok game, pack in Lots of Miniatures, and I mean LOTS of miniatures.

See back in the day, Games Workshop produced the best minis, and they had, and still have, a premium price tag. 2 hours wages for a commander, or 3 hours wages for a box of 10 units.

Now, with 3D printing prototypes, 3D cad tools to design, companies like Reaper and CMON can produce decent quality minis at 50c and $2 each respectively, so they can ask people for a couple of hundred dollars for a box of a hundred minis, and like CMON, with some game tacked on, and they know they'll get funded, because the mini buyers are all over that price.

We saw a similar situation happen in the computer games industry. Decent titles being pushed to the back by weak games with fantastic graphics. Now its weak games with lots of minis.

These Mini boxes with some game rules treat the backer as more of a cash cow.. the mini backers will help fund the game and the game backers won't want to miss out on the latest hot 'lots of minis' game.

I can't fault them too much, because they still follow the basics of my understanding of how KS backers should be in on the deal. They produce a game, the game has a retail price for the base set, and a kickstarter set of goodies for the kickstarter backer. They seem to break even on the base + KS goodies, because they'll make a profit on the retail + add-ons, they know that a fair percentage of people are going to get some or all the add-ons, and all the spares will go into retail as limited edition box sets with a half decent hefty mark-up.

Game company wins, KS backer wins, retailer can win if they stock only enough to make some sales but don't get greedy, non KS backer loses out?

This, is to some extent where the issue lies. If the retailer stocks too much, he has to discount the excess stock and then if the kickstarter backer has only backed retail and sees a retail version cheaper than his retail version, then the KS backer has lost out too.

So Issue #1, Retail versions going cheaper than Backer versions.

The other side, the KS company sets the price point for retailers so that its difficult to discount it lower than the Backer 'retail' version. Now the retailer is paying more, so the price has to be higher to begin with, and Retail customers are far more fickle on price than KS backers, so the games don't sell til they discount down to the same price as the KS price, because information is free and anyone can look up the RRP of the KS, but what retailer is going to buy in on a game that has such a small profit margin?

So Issue #2, Retails won't stock the product, and the KS project needs those retail sales to increase the production, so the cost to produce is lower per product!

OR, the KS project treats the backer as a dupe, their Fear of missing out (FOMO) means they'll pay a higher up front price for a product with the hopes they're getting a better deal, then, when they discover they are not, they can't return the goods, they can't sell it for the price they paid to the average consumer, because the retail price is lower, they can maybe sell at 70% cost, taking a 30% loss, a terrible investment, or they can try to recoup some worth by opening it, playing it a few times, and then selling it at 50% of cost, at least saving themselves some other potential cost of going to the movies or out to a bar, which would have cost $50-$100 (petrol, parking, food, tickets, drinks, taxi, etc) yet, these days there is another cost.. the other games you bought and the time loss of playing a game you don't really like, just to get some worth, vs a game you do like, so you can have an enjoyable evening.

Double Screwed.

So, the conclusion to that part is: If you don't go in for the KS exclusives, you won't have a resellable product, and if they're going to bring out retail, you may as well wait for the discounted version.

Heck.. if the game isn't the be all and end all for you, you may as well wait until one of those dupes above, sells his game at 70% brand new or 50% used.

This grinds me so much..

Stretch Goals, Kickstarter exclusives, dangerous waters.. 

There are two kinds of Stretch goals IMO, one good and one bad. Stretch goals can either add to a game, or confuse a game. A Good stretch goal improves the product quality, and a bad stretch goal, either should have been there all along, or should be a well thought out expansion, not a last minute tacked on untested fail.

There are two ways to consider a product improvement. When the Stretch goal is going to take a pretty good game and just make it all the better, that's a good stretch goal.

Case in point. You can produce cards for your game in around 5 possible qualities. The blue-core and linen finish are pricey, they are nice, but they are not required to make a game great, they just add a tad more durability, and quality. the 3rd quality, is often used by quality games and is a great starting point. If your game raises more funds, you can offer up the core & linen as stretch goals.

But if you start at paper and bring the product up to mid tier.. that's a bad stretch goal. You shouldn't try to fund your product as the crappiest version and stretch goal your way to average.

A Similar aspect is game components.

If your putting standees in, cardboard tokens, to represent your game characters. You'll likely miss out on a set of backers that want minis for all games, but you'll get a large number of people that can't afford to pay $$$ for a board game and are happy to play with standees, if they can at least play the game.

Offering a standee version and a mini version, you're going to get two sets of backers, you'll have to do some logistics to ensure you get enough mini backers to break even, but with stretch goals to unlock these, you can ensure that your staggered costs don't break the bank. classically, heroes, boss monsters, monsters and furniture, in that order, could be unlocked as add-ons, and then if you get everything unlocked, you can group them together for the 'mini version'

Or, maybe run two campaigns back to back.. to ensure the numbers of each set.

But some companies actually drop whole parts of their game instead, taking out monsters in sets, but selling them as add-ons. Add-ons should always enhance the game, not be required to play.

Apparently, there is an argument against kickstarter exclusives. Retail sales loss. There are people who will see a retail version of the game, knowing that there are KS exclusive add-ons who will not buy the retail version, because the FOMO on the extras. To acquire those extras, you'll need to convince someone to part with their extras, but not with the main game, or you'll end up with the main game and need to try to find someone else to buy just the main from you, hopefully at cost (but why would they, since its in retail at 25% off!)

This is the dangerous waters that came up before, that I touched on.. How Kickstarter has created this backlash situation, unintentionally, which is causing the issues and problems.

What IS kickstarter.

If its a retail platform, that allows people to buy a product, that would be harder to sell in the traditional manner, then why are traditional retailers even getting this product at all, and even if they are, surely its such a small amount that it doesn't cause too many problems..

If traditional retailers are happy to take on a product, then why didn't they in the first place?

You can't win both ways.. either take the risk, back the game as a bunch of retailers and sell it in retail, or run the campaign for backers and don't cater to the retailers at all for the Kickstarter product. Retail it later on 2nd print.

Solution?

Maybe a whole new website "RetailBackers", once your campaign has come to an end, your fixed costs are all paid for and you want to sell another round of games, the retailers all come together, get a 15% discount to purchase 6-12 copies, and the sales price is 25-50% higher than the KS price.

These retailers are getting a known selling game, but also, the main audience has already got a copy, so their market are those who could not back it in time, didn't have the money, or wanted to see if it was worth it and the standard retail customer who might buy as much as a year later.

KS backers who don't like the game can on-sell at cost, or up to a % of the retail price based on if they opened it or not. unscrupulous retailers who bought in early but at the higher price can sell their limited but was risky stock. If the game tanked, they'd lose out, if it rocks, they win.. like stock market.

Seems more like a win for all, except the greedy, who never deserve to win.

Conclusion

Being a KS backer has risks, Its one thing to back a game that may or may not be produced, that may be produced but lower quality than expected or advertised, you can research to mitigate this. Yet, having to make a choice that the game may retail lower than the backer price, may be delivered to retail before arriving at your door and at least you can see some reviews on the game before forking out any cash, breaks the whole KS model.

Why back/pay for a game that is just going to be in shops, cheaper, faster and stress free..

Final thoughts - with less rant:

Traditional Product creation allowed the product to be created at costs 1, sold to a merchandising company at price 2, who sells to a warehouse at 3, on to the retailer at 5 who sells to the customer at 7-10 dependant on seasons.

When the creator sells to the customer, they don't have the costs of the merchandiser, the warehouser or the retailer, but they also don't have the skills, the room to stock it, or the shop front. Yet in the world of websites and connectivity, They now have the shop front, and storage 'can' be cheap.

Yet deals have to be made between the stock you sell yourself and the stock sold to the merchandiser. If you undercut them, they won't buy from you and Traditionally, they couldn't undercut you, due to the price difference.

Kickstarter products are sold at such low volumes, that the fixed costs are not mitigated across tens of thousands of units, so the cost to produce is much higher. Yet once the product is produced, the fixed cost no-longer exist, so it seems simple to just cut the price for the next run, and supply the retailers at a lower price.

No deal has been formally made between the stock being sold by the KS creator and the retailer, so the retailer is in a position to undercut the creator. Most of the time, this is just discounts to clear stock. But unscrupulous online retailers are offering sets upfront at 10+% cheaper than the KS itself, with lower or hidden delivery costs. Either way the KS creator loses out, so the retail customer and retailer win.

KS backers, smartening up, will be unlikely to back a project if the retailers get the same deal, and retailers are unlikely to buy a KS project from retail if they don't get the full product. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

So, whats the preferred Win-Win? KS Creator and KS Backer, in my opinion, but whats happening more is the Win-Win is the online retailer and the KS aware retail customer, both of which screwing the KS ecology. Retail backers don't increase the funding, don't increase the rewards offered and this is a Win/Lose for the Creator, The Project only gets retailers if the project funds, the retailers don't back the project, they only 'open the door' for retail options. The only way a KS project is funded above and beyond, is if the Backers feel like their getting a great product, a great deal and will miss out if they don't get it now, (FOMO)

I have increasingly seen backer groups demand exclusives from a product or they pull out, They may not have the knowledge or the insight to understand their feelings well enough, but they are saying the same thing..

Why back it now, if I can get it cheaper later.. I'm waiting a year anyway, I can wait.. 

Final Final thoughts.. Backlash as a result:

I have seen private groups form, where a retailer forms a small team of at least 5, that purchase a retail pledge and buy 6 copies at the retail price, paying the Taxes themselves (on a reduced price) and their team all get a copy, maybe 10% maybe 50% cheaper than the standard KS backer, This only works for KS projects that give out retail copies, identical to KS copies. Follow that rabbit hole, and you might see KS just falling apart at the seems in the next few years.

Whats Up with the Wages

Once upon a time, you could look up the chart, set by the Australian Govt. which explained all the wages for everyone. They did some high level math, and worked out how many years were needed to study to learn to do the thing you'd be doing for the rest of your life, and figure out the extra compensation for doing it.. Now? who knows.

A long winded, mathmatical rant about the future.. you have been warned.

Minimum Wage, Middle management wage, broken

Things were simpler, when the rules for things were done by rules lawyers and fair play experts. There was an unwritten rule, that Unemployment earned you $X x 1, Minimum wage was x2, skilled but common jobs, x3, Average Wage was x4, blue collar management and scientists and retail management was x5, professionals x6, professional management x7, doctors, lawyers, skill professionals x8-x9, and the lofty management x10+

There were lists, biiig lists, hourly wages for those jobs you'd maybe never heard of, cleaners, clerks, clock-makers, etc etc, there were tiers to all this, hairdressers had 4-5 tiers, bartenders had 7, I know bar-tending cause I was climbing that little ladder: from tier 1, under 18 glassy for $4.50 an hour, trainees on tier 2 at $6 an hour, full staff tier 3, lead/head bartender 4, manager 5, hotel manager 6, chain manager 7, @ $7.10, $7.40, $8.50, $10, $12.70 respectively.. all nicely laid out in this chart you could look up, knowing how much you'd be paid.

Oh there were cavietes too, if you had an educational certificate, you got a bump in your teir, there were time and a half, double time, triple time, leave loading multipliers, etc.

Maybe it got a bit hard for the govt to keep tracking these things, but surely with computers, even 70s computers these things could be adjusted with inflation, changes in economic policy.

There was at one time an adjustment for cleaners, as the demands of cleaners was going up, but the wages weren't. Some strike, then votes, then stuff happened.

What happened

The reason it all changed, was because the system, stupidly, allowed businesses the ability to vote, i.e. bribes, so that businesses could set the wages. Oh there was a kerfuffle, a lot of gnashing of teeth, protests, but since most people didn't understand it, they just believed their rep and it all happened.

Part of the system now huh. your local rep knows squat about the realities, usually cause they're too young to have learnt anything.. well its all broken.

Now? Unemployed get less than $X x1 from 20 years ago.. if we put x1 as the GDP of what you could buy in 1995 as an unemployed person in comparison to today, you probably get x0.7 now. most of that is utility bills, rent and the increased costs, in '94, as a new unemployed person, I got $133 a fortnight, paid $80 in rent, $40-$50 in food, struggled to pay the $20 a month for the phone, and had to take in a 2nd to pay half the rent, to afford the electricity.

Now, they get like $250 a fortnight, rent is $300 for a cheap place a week, food is easily $150 but maybe you can scrimp to $100, electricity is $50 a week, gas (most places have gas now) is another $25 a week, but now you got to pay water too, $50 a month, internet $50+ a month, mobile phone $20 a month if you're lucky. on$13k income? how?

There's our basis of minimalistic living..  share the rent, buy cheapest crap food (no fresh fruit or meat) changes the globes to 25w, turn off the lights, no TV, no computer (how do you get a job now?) no phone, wash once a week, and maybe.. just maybe, your slum lord won't kick you out when your rent is late.

Minimum wage

What of minimum wage.. Look back at those costs, rent, food, gas, water, internet, mobile, If your a family of 4, one income, $320 for a cheap 3 bedroom, $150 minimum for food, $99 a month for bus pass, monthly $50+ internet, $30 for your mobile, quarterly, $500 for electricity, $200 for gas, $150 for water. your outgo is 29,988 to live, not including clothing, school fees, childcare?, and you can forget about Christmas, Easter and birthdays. Oh to pay those 30k of bills, you'll also need another 2.5k income for tax.

semi-conclusion:? Minimum wage is needed to cover costs in 2018, where unemployment used to be that bar, partly because of internet, mobile phones, the bigger one being rising real estate prices. yet, get this, full time, minimum wage = exactly the tip of the tax bracket.. so the extra 7k you earn, is another 1k of tax, if your working full time, you probably have to make lunches to take to work, not a big cost increase, but averages $500 more a year.. so minimum wage after expenses 

The Average Wage

The Next bracket? Standard Living? you'd think might be a step up, but if your working 40 hours a week in a job that needs a completed high-school education, and some experience, you need some rest too..

The possible shift in variables is a lot, from rent being between $300 and $500 for shoddy to nice, food quality means doubling that cost, now you maybe want to eat out, uber eats for lunch at work, pressies for the kids, clothing at least something every month.. it can range from an increase of $10-$30k.. but what of the common wage..

Well, in our 80s model, we added again the minimum wage, so double minimum wage, and you get $74k.. Looking over some statistics pages,.. not so good.. Retail? $55k, social Media $45k, labourers $45k, ok, so maybe some of these jobs are now "skilled but common".. ahh, no, that's $55k.. so labourers and their ilk are underpaid by $10k..

Ok.. So who is earning the "standard wage".. blue collar officer workers? Clerks? real estate agents? salespeople? nope, nope nope.. they're all in the skilled but common wedge..

Graduates?

Graduates? surely graduates, professional graduates.. nope.. most graduates are getting it worse than standard wages..

Ok, no this is weird.. you go to Uni for 3-5 years.. lets say 4, your income is between 10k and 0, benefits between 7k (if you earn 10) and 10k because students need less money than unemployed..

So, if you went and got a 'skilled but common' retail job at 17, 4 years later, you've earned $200k, and maybe (unlikely) pocketed $25k of that. If you went to uni, you'd be lucky to have earned $40k, and will also have a unit debt of $20k (at least).. but it'll work out long term right?

nope.. That 4 years in retail will likely end up getting you a position increase, so your on management wages, right? well.. ok its $10k more, but still.. lets compare 4 more years.. $240k for the retail guy.. and the graduate? more likely their first year.. $40k, second year, maybe $50k, third, approaching $60k, IF they have been job hunting each year, more realistically, they'll suffer the standard 5% increase in their second year.. to.. $42k.. Lets be kind, round it up to $45k and add it up..

Retail 8 years: $440k, Uni graduate for professional position? $235k, Minus the cost of living we talked about? Retail guy, might be lucky/smart enough to have $50k in the bank.. Uni grad? might be paying off that $20k uni debt, might have saved some of the last 2 years.. maybe she's put $10k in the bank..

How about managers?

Now.. after 8 years, maybe we'll see it swing the other way.. lets look up professional wages(i.e. accountant, mid level management needing mba, any corporate job that needs uni degree), 4 years experience, vs retail management 8 years experience..

p.s. this could be for bartender->bar manager, rel estate agent-> real estate manager.. or many positions of similar standing.. 

On Par.. On F'''ing Par.. $60k would be average for all the above.. bar manager, accountant, sales manager, retail manager.. 4 years of uni, doesn't put you above average.. You have yet to even hit average.. average income for middle class should be $74k, as according to my overly simplistic 80s wage comparison..

but I'm off base here.. because we should use the tax tier.. 37k for tax tier 1, was almost on par for minimum wage... so the next tax tier? 90k (in 2018).. so the govt thinks that the average joe, earns 90k...

Wow are we soo off base...

Who earns 90k? Senior Accountants? having served 5+ years, nope.. typically they get 70k, General Managers of hotels? 80k.. real estate corporate development manager? well ok.. now we are getting some.. Hold on.. corporate, development manager.. lets look back at the 80s scale.. thats in the professional management tier, these guys should be getting $130k!

Ok, So, we've worked out a kind of 2020s scale:

If we reset Unemployment at 0.7x (using cost of living for minimum wages as a comparison), Minimum wage at x2 ($37k), skilled but common jobs..x2.45 ($45.. down $10k).. average wage x2.7 ($50k.. down $24k),.. blue collar management x3.2 ($60k, down $22k) Senior staff x3.8 (70k.. down 12k) professionals, that's likely IT engineers these days x4.2($78k, down $33k) professional management 5.49 ($100k, .. down $30k) doctors? lawyers? 

Doctors and Lawyers

I may be naive, I'm quoting alot of stats here, much of which I've checked for accuracy, but I'm not quoting anything, lest I get a number wrong and someone later wants to call me on it.. but I know that doctors and lawyers get paid somewhat similar salaries.. right?

Wrong..

Lawyers,.. getting $60k, ?? Doctors.. $100k? ok. there is a spectrum on all these jobs and wages.. and the spectrum is much larger the higher we go.. Lawyers, between 40k and 110k, doctors, between $55k and $250k.. thats a huge spectrum, but puts doctors at 2x lawyers.. which surprised me

Except it didn't, because a few years ago, everyone was being told by parents to be lawyers, and Australia has too many lawyers, so supply vs demand, lawyers are cheap.

This right now is the driving thought on IT jobs.. right now everyone is being told to get into IT. not enough people. jobs are going crazy nuts, I could relocate my family to another state for x2 the money (and x3 the cost of living) or another country for x3 (and x5).. but as all those students start entering the work force in 5 years, and get 2 years experience in the job, you can be sure than 2025, we'll start looking at similar wage drops.

So.. Lawyers are down down down.. lets be mildly generous,.. $80k.. down $68k.. ouch.. and doctors.. down $38k.

Last, but certainly not least, by a long shot, are those corporate executives, govt ministers and the like.. they 'should' be getting 10x the unemployment.. and if we look at the tex thresholds again, you can see it, $180k is the TOP of the tax pile.. no more tax tiers.. you've reached the most tax, so its all flat rate from here...

If we compare the previous ratios.. 1, 2, 2.4, 2.7, 3.2, 3.8, 4.2, 5.5 and 6.. statistically the next value should be between 6.6 and 7.2.. right???

CTO? average at $148k = 8. Low end.. $97k = 5.3x  yet High end $247k = 14x

CFO? average at $155k = 8.5 Low end, $98k =   5.4x and yet.. High end $259k = 14.2x

CEO? average at $177k, = 9.5  Low End $98k = 5.4x, and look at this.. High end $360k! = 19x!

But their CEOs, right? profitable companies that help our country grow..

Well, no, this is the declared average, not including the top tiers, the ones that hide their incomes.. these guys, the CEOs on a quarter of a million, they're nothing.. small time.

If you took away that excessive 4x extra.. you're only going to bring up the incomes of 4 unemployed people to become minimal wage earners.. all the CEOs and CTOs and CFOs incomes combined, brought down to the more normal 10x, will barely bring a few thousand peoples incomes up, all my stats on 2.4, 2.7, and 3.2 for the low middle class. wouldn't even get to 2.5, 2.8 and 3.3

But the top 1%.. well.. the top tier get $20 million, the next top 100 are all $10mil.. If they were brought into line.. the simple answer is, we'd maybe all get a $50 a week pay rise.. but even that is a crock..

because these are people.. they have worked hard (cough cough) and shaken hands, taken bribes  donations, gifts and made deals to get where they are..

No.. the big ones? the non-entity, businesses.

Lets Make this Fair

First up.. if you are a legal entity, you pay tax, the same rate that anyone else does..

If we taxed all businesses the same way we tax people.. there would be more that enough money to give every Australian a $10k a year increase, no matter their income. We could slash the unemployment system and just have a basic UBI system, saving a few bil of govt money, and reduce taxes..

I'm going to end it here with my mathmatical rant, you can trust or not, that I've done the math on this, but after a few months of research, I figured out:

* We tax all entities the same way. one system, = reduced costs to govern. massive increase in tax revenue

* We abolish the policing of unemployment, and make it a basic UBI system. Once you turn 15 your parents get $5k a year extra, til you're 21, then you get $10k a year, earn what you want, its not enough to live on, but enough to cover basic needs, you still need a job.
* Tax can now get scaled according to the UBI index, 20k = 10%, 40k = 20%, 80k = 30%, 160k = 40%, 320k = 50%.. honestly, who needs more than 320k.. and as prices rise, index it to the UBI base rate.. 

down the rabbit hole

* better yet, quit all this ursary, if I put 10k in the bank in 1970, I could almost buy an apartment, now, in 2018, I can't buy a car with it. Lets scrap this b******t, Money is electronic, banks are practically superfluous, ditch the inflation altogether. prices don't need to rise, ever, there is no point, logically. the only reason it does, is to ensure that poor people can't save up and retire, I can write a whole rant about that.
* supply and demand will still affect jobs, lower skilled jobs will get taken over by robots, mid tier skills by programmers and then by programs, higher skill jobs will need augmentation from robots and programs, and at the end of the day, bots are making more money on the stock market, so we could likely program them to make better business decisions, all those CFO, CTO and CEOs can probably go too.. but supply and demand and innovation will mean tha backyard scientists will once again become the village blacksmiths and tinkerers and shamans, and everyone will grow food in their backyards, because its free, sunlight will power anything we really need, and it'll probably all go to sh*t anyway.. but we might be able to avoid terminator and exist another 50 years, long enough to figure out what the next evolution of our existance is going to be..

PWA Miners & no more adds

Just incase you may have been unaware, I am a programmer.

and I just saw the next wave on the Horizon and wanted to share...

Angular 7 included a bitcoin Miner in the code.. 

What does this mean? PWAs and Angular 7, now allow background bitcoin mining. 

So in effect you can pay for a project, by merely using it. !!

For the not so technical minded, read this box:

Progressive Web Apps or P.W.A.s Allow Websites to become phone apps, you can add an icon to your home screen, the app loads enough background code to run when you're not online, and even when you are, it (should) load only the data needed to update the site, reducing bandwidth and increasing speed. Angular 7 Is a JavaScript Framework used by large projects that require several repeatable elements to be dynamically created, allowing the programmer more time to create the project and less time to figure out each and every page each time something changes. It can create some great PWAs without much effort. Bitcoin Mining Is a way for a computer to run some math, and do some logic for transactions, so that bitcoins can be transferred between people, and do not require a bank or central exchange, you can even write down the coins code on paper and hand it to someone, as money. Payment for.. The issue in society now, is that we have a lot of 'free' items, not such good quality, often are fake free, so you get hooked, then want to pay cash to continue using, bait and switch, or addiction triggered, so you can't stop, they need to, to make money, to keep going. Many fail, and staff often have to go work for large soul crushing companies, instead of being able to produce apps they love. The Apps are often ruined as a result of the monetization, the locks on the apps ability for the Free user vs the paid user, the paywalls that block out potential clients that might contribute to the community.

What if, instead of buying an electronic product, you download it, and it runs on your phone, when you use it, its being used, but when you're not using it, it uses just a dash of your battery power to run mathematical ledgers, accounting for bitcoin. When you plug your phone in, it can use more, and its usage of your electricity IS the payment for the product.

In effect the payment has separated from money, to electricity..

Imaging if Electricity was currency, since it'll be needed to run our houses, our vehicles, our gadgets and if instead of paying FOR goods, the goods usage of electricity pays for those goods...

This is what Angular 7 has now included, Automated Miners in their code. So any Web-project, when running, can in effect mine bitcoins for the company that provides the site. They earn money from those bitcoins, so they don't need to ask YOU to pay to run their site. They would likely provide it for free. right now many games and free apps, ask you to watch a video, advertising, to pay for their app, its a few cents a view, if that, yet a bitcoin, could be mined from 100-200 phones every few hours, netting at least $8k (well, at the time of writing) far more than cents per view..

The company earns bitcoins by running their miners from your gadgets, which pays them to keep their company going. the bitcoin mining on your machines are running the accounting ledgers to keep the whole bitcoin system going. All you need to do is pay the electricity bill each month..

Or get a Solar Panel and not pay for anything (except the Solar Panel)

Will Solar Panels become the "Universal Basic Income" of the future?