PicoBusiness

Voting is irrational, goes the economic saying.  Because the amount of effort involved on your part is so much greater than the infinitesimal  input you provide into the process.

It stand to reason, therefore, that the fewer people who vote, the more valuable or meaningful your input is.

Which means that there’s a body of voters N at which it is no longer irrational to vote… with a small enough sample, your vote is very valuable.

By decreasing the number of people who vote, you increase the value of your own vote.  It is, therefore, entirely rational to try to convince people that they should not vote, because of the benefit that brings to your own vote.

So, for example, a professor of economics who attempts to convince you that voting is irrational is, indirectly, attempting to increase the value of their own vote!

At the risk of going all schoolgirl… OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!

This is fantastic news, and more than makes up for the cancellation of Firefly and Arrested Development in my overall TV Karma metric.

HBO also has Rome, which is amazing.

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Having seen about 6 episodes, I feel very comfortable saying that I really, really like 30 Rock.  It’s got some of the great surreality of SNL, but without the need to drag it on for 90 minutes.  Tina Fey is also one of my favorite SNL alumni.

Last, but not least, if you’ve ever worked with anyone from GE, I believe you will find Jack Donaghy to be wonderfully, terribly funny.  Many people don’t like Alec Baldwin because of his politics.  But the Jack character is 180 off on the political angle, and Mr Baldwin manages it with aplomb.

In the spirit of all of the other “of the year” awards handed out on blogs across the world, I thought I would create my own.  This is the award given for the most egregiously anti-customer organization of the year 2006.  While often the market will punish organizations for being anti-consumer, there are a number of organizations where, for a variety of reasons, this is extremely difficult to do.  In general, nominees are judged on style, level of evilness and poise.   As a rule of thumb, if you could picture C. Montgomery Burns implementing this business practice, it is suitable for inclusion in this list.
The nominees:

• The RIAA for both suing otherwise harmless individuals who may or may not have shared music “because the artists need their royalties”, and simultaneously asking that the royalties for artists be reduced “because of digital distribution.”
• WalMart and the US Government (tandem) for deliberately (ab)using the medicare system to keep their healthcare costs down.  This is in two parts, because the politicians shouldn’t have created a system that can be abused in this way.
• Microsoft, for creating an ‘international standard” that is so complex that no-one but the original creator can implement it

I invite you to submit your own, and send this out to friends for their own suggestions as well.
(Note, I will not accept nominations for either the Russian or Chinese government.  Both are too easy)

To the tune of “American Idiot” (click to hear the song)

Don’t want to be a Socialist idiot
Don’t want a nation of stifling taxes
And can you hear the sound of hypocrisy?
The leftist mind-control America

Welcome to a new kind of thinking
All across the liberal nation
Where they tell you what you must do and buy
And then they claim that they know better
They want to be the ones that you follow
And you’re just dumb if you argue

I obviously haven’t been writing here much lately.  A lot of reasons, one being that if I wrote what I really felt like writing, it will be read by certain people that I’d rather not know my exact thoughts right now.

But I did want to post an update on mmmzr - the crazy ad-based website with the difficult name.  It’s essentially gone bust.  He’s thrown in the towel, unable to deal with the legal complications that come with large sums exchanging hands.  So, instead of making a bunch of money, he’s lost a bunch of money.

Lessons:

• if your website is based on exponential growth, be prepared for exponential growth.
• Have a lawyer help write up your terms and conditions.

I would probably have run afoul of point 2, if I hadn’t seen this first, so I’ve been able to learn from his mistake.

Visited States.  I’ve pretty much taken care of the bottom half.

create your own visited states map or check out these Google Hacks.

I’m a rabid free marketer, and by rabid I mean:”Annoys all his friends because he never shuts up about how the free market has brought more benefit to humanity than any other invention ever.”
And as far as this article about the free market and broadband is concerned, there are a number of factors involved.

• Governments competing with private enterprise is ok, so long as the government does not use its law-making power to create an unfair advantage

• which, unfortunately, is very likely to happen

• It is in their best interest to avoid/supress competition if at all possible, and they seem to be content to share the market with each other, but with no other entrants.

Where does this leave us?

Ideally, two additional entrants with broiadband offerings (for a total of four) would create enough of a chaotic system where free market competitive effects would apply, and benefit consumers.  Ideally, none of these would be governments-sponsored because the temptation to limit competition is very strong.

However, given that the other two players are government-sponsored, I think that three competitors would be better than two, and if governments are offering broadband, it is because the DSL and Cable companies have done a crappy job of making the service affordable and attractive.

My guess as to how things will play out - Governments will start to offer broadband, over the objections of the cable companies and telcos.   Some DSL and Cable cos will “bribe” state governments to prevent cities from offering broadband; unfortunate, but given that the government has the power, corruption is inevitable.

Some states won’t outlaw municipal broadband, and some cities will offer services.  Some of these will be run very well, and will be very successful. Many will not - they will be as ineptly run as every other government service,  wasting a bunch of taxpayers money for a very small benefit.  That’s pretty typical of government initiatives.   But they won’t be shut down - once the government service exists, it will exist for a long time.  Eventually, it might be “spun out” or licensed to a private agency, which will, of course, be granted monopoly power over wireless broadband.

And then we’ll end up with three monopoly-licensed broadband providers in play, which, all told, is probably better than two.

From the “It’s complimentary, so it must be true.” department - more educated people think like economists. And in fact, intelligence is the best predictor of belief in market mechanisms.

What does that mean?  Well, if the study is correct, in general, if you believe in the free market, are optimistic about future economic growth, don’t believe in “make-work” projects as economically valuable and believe that international free trade is overall a valuable benefit to the economy, you’re likely to have a higher IQ.  And the converse is true as well.
As a side note, apparently a large vocabulary is also a good proxy for intelligence.

mmmzr is already at $28k in gross revenue, approx $7k in net revenue.  (See previous post here). The question I have to ask now is - how high will it go?  What do you all think the biggest fool will pay for a slot?

My guess is that at $16,384, you’re going to hit a limit where there’s not enough “oomph” compared to other ways one could spend that in advertising.  That’s only 8 sales away right now, so I could be completely wrong.

However, I’m still glad I didn’t try to buy in at $512 or $1024, even thought it is clear I would have made a tidy sum.

If I’m wrong, and people bid it up past $16k, I suspect that you’ll start to see copycats, especially on higher traffic blogs, as the free market takes hold.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  mmmzr is an example of both Multi-level Marketing and Internet Bubble concepts, all rolled into one.

Here’s how it works - you buy real estate on his home page, create a button, and the click-through for the button leads to your website.     Later on, someone (Person A) else buys your real-estate, and mmmzr pays you, and your button moves down the page.  Then, later on again, someone else (Person B) buys the real estate from Person A, and you get paid your original purchase price again.  So you’ll get 2x your initial purchase price back.
Each time, mmmzr gets 25% of the money from the sale.  He’s already up to about $2200 in “gross” income, of which he is keeping about $450 at this point.   Not bad for a few hours work.

To be fair, the author points out that you shouldn’t assume you’ll get 2x your purchase price.  You should buy an ad because you think it is valuable.  I tried to buy an ad at $128, but someone else snapped it up first, and I don’t feel like risking any more money than that.  As it stands, it looks like I would have gotten my money back x2 already.

However, the fundamental driving force is the “Bigger Fool” - I will foolishly buy this house for $250k, because some bigger fool will come along and buy it for $500k, and I’ll make a ton of money
But that, by definition doesn’t last forever.   It will last a while, but it’s not clear how long.  I’m certainly helping in some small way by linking to the site, and honestly, I wish nothing but the best for the owner, who seems like a smart, creative fellow.  But I can’t, in good conscience, risk more than what I’ve already risked on such a silly and potentially replicable model.  Realistically, is there something that will prevent someone with a better domain name with better traffic from replicating the service, and potentially reaching higher valuations?     MillionDollarHomePage worked because the name and the content were the same.  mmmzr just doesn’t have the same ring, now does it, and the costs are quickly growing prohibitive for all but “real” businesses.

A tongue-in-cheek list of things you can do to help ensure you will not succeed. At different times, I’ve done every single one of these!

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I’m in the process of reading The Single Founder Myth, by Mike Taber.   He is politely disagreeing with Paul Graham about the value of one vs. more than one founder.

For myself, Mike seems to be using anectodal evidence to support his claim that it is possible to succeed with a single founder.  Yes, it is possible, but it isn’t particularly likely

Why?

Strengths of Single Founder

• Single focus, single vision.  Breakout successes will more often come from one person, and be diluted by others who seek compromise.
• Easier dilution - a single founder can give away more of the stock, and still retain a huge chunk or even control.  That’s more difficult with more founders
• Less costs to cover - assuming that the founder(s) represent a drain on cash, the fewer the better.

Weaknesses of Single Founder

• No one to bounce ideas off of
• No one to help improve - this is the antithesis of “undiluted vision” above, but often tweaks and conversations will make a solution better, not worse
• No ability to play to strengths - if one founder is better at sales, and the other is better at, say, operations, there’s a natural benefit to letting them both do what they’re best at.

I’ve founded two companies, both times with friends.  I may start one on my own in the future, but I would much rather start with a partner who can cover some of my weak spots if I can.

(Cross-posted from Indefinite Articles)