Invented Problems for New Solutions

I read recently that Netflix agreed to a deal with Comcast to ensure faster access to their content. Details of the deal haven’t been announced, but it’s safe to say that Netflix will pay a large chunk of change to Comcast, and in return, Comcast will allow Netflix’s content to stream quickly over its lines. This will help alleviate some complaints that Netflix has received regarding loading and buffering delays of its content.

A couple of things about this really amaze me. One, it’s legal for a company providing internet access to accept money from a company providing content in exchange for faster access to that content. Good luck to anyone who wants to compete with Netflix. Two, we’ve reached the point where waiting for a movie to load or buffer is enough of an inconvenience that people will actually complain about it!

Thousands of films and television shows can be delivered directly to our living rooms. This is done instantly. Through wires we can’t even see. Or maybe not even through wires at all. And yet some of us still complain about a minutes-long delay in these programs loading. Imagine if we had to revert back to an earlier day in which the only opportunity to watch an old film or television show was to wait for it to appear on some local channel late at night.

Oh the humanity!

Technological developments of recent years are fascinating. But perhaps the most incredible invention of all is the invention of the continuous need for these things. Technology is cool, and it solves problems, but it also invents them. How else do we explain a company that’s willing to pay millions of dollars to eliminate a minutes or sometimes seconds-long delay in the operation of their product? A product, by the way, that only six years ago we were amazed even existed.

So instead of coming up with solutions for problems we didn’t even know we had, (“My, that picture on my television just looks incredibly fuzzy. If only I could purchase an expensive new television with a clearer picture,” said no one ever in the years immediately preceding the marketing of HDTVs), I propose a national effort to solve real problems. The sort of problems that drive us all crazy, but we probably rarely think about.

Now, you might think that some of these things aren’t really problems, or that they already have solutions. But if we accepted that answer, then most of the consumer electronics industry wouldn’t exist.

So my call to do better:

When the light turns green, why does it take half a minute before the fifteen cars ahead of me begin to accelerate? We all know it’s green. Why aren’t we all going at the same time, or at least a little sooner than we are now?

By now shouldn’t someone have invented a more effective way to remove snow from streets than a snowplow?

How about a door that prevents people wearing too much cologne or perfume from entering a building?

Why must pop (or soda or coke, depending on where you are) taste so much better from a fountain than a can? Let’s fix that.

Bar soap works great for ninety percent of its life. Then it gets down to a little nub and becomes practically worthless. It falls to the shower floor and slowly washes away. It’s like a soap tithe to the shower. How can we get around that?  

Pencils and crayons, too. Why do we just accept the waste that goes along with throwing away usable portions of these items?

Surely we can invent a better toothpaste tube, can’t we? At least it seems like people are trying to do something about this. The stand-up tubes with the pull-back dispenser at the top is marginally more effective, but also messier.

How about a razor that works, won’t end up in a landfill, doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, and isn’t something that I might accidentally kill myself with while using it?

Public restrooms. Enough said, isn’t it?

And for the love of God, would someone please figure out a way to take the calories out of cheesecake?

Is that too much to ask?