There are two key mistakes in the public policy arena that we don’t talk enough about. They are two apparently opposite sides of the same fallacious coin.
Call the first fallacy “innovation blindness.” In this case, policy makers can’t see the way new technologies or ideas might affect, say, the future cost of health care, or the environment. The result is a narrow focus on today’s problems rather than tomorrow’s opportunities. The orientation toward the problem often exacerbates it by closing off innovations that could transcend the issue altogether.
The second fallacy is “innovation assumption.” Here, the mistake is taking innovation for granted. Assume the new technology will come along even if we block experimentation. Assume the entrepreneur will start the new business, build the new facility, launch the new product, or hire new people even if we make it impossibly expensive or risky for her to do so. Assume the other guy’s business is a utility while you are the one innovating, so he should give you his product at cost — or for free — while you need profits to reinvest and grow.
Reversing these two mistakes yields the more fruitful path. We should base policy on the likely scenario of future innovation and growth. But then we have to actually allow and encourage the innovation to occur.
All this sprung to mind as I read Andy Kessler’s article, “Why AT&T Killed Google Voice.” For one thing, Google Voice isn’t dead . . . but let’s start at the beginning.
Kessler is a successful investor, an insightful author, and a witty columnist. I enjoy seeing him each year at the Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference, where he delights the crowd with fast-paced, humorous commentaries on finance and technology. Here, however, Kessler falls prey to the innovation assumption fallacy.
Kessler argues that Google Voice, a new unified messaging application that combines all your phone numbers into one and can do conference calls and call transcripts, is going to overturn the entire world of telecom. Then he argues that Apple and AT&T attempted to kill Google Voice by blocking it as an “app” on Apple’s iPhone App Store. Why? Because Google Voice, according to Kessler, can do everything the telecom companies and Apple can do — better, even. These big, slow, old companies felt threatened to their core and are attempting to stifle an innovation that could put them out of business. We need new regulations to level the playing field.
Whoa. Wait a minute.
Google Voice seems like a nice product, but it is largely a call-forwarding system. I’ve already had call forwarding, simultaneous ring, Web-based voice mail, and other unified messaging features for five years. Good stuff. Maybe Google Voice will be the best of its kind.
There are just all sorts of fun and productive things happening all across the space. It was the very AT&T-Apple-iPhone combo that created “visual voice mail,” which allowed you to see and choose individual messages instead of wading through long queues of unwanted recordings.
But let’s move on to think about much larger issues.
Suggesting we can enjoy Google’s software innovations without the network innovations of AT&T, Verizon, and hundreds of service providers and technology suppliers is like saying that once Microsoft came along we no longer needed Intel. (more…)
