Uber’s children and the death of the trade-off
We don’t just expect Wi-Fi on planes now, we demand it. We demand high-speed Internet that never drops, as we hurtle through the sky at 400mph, 30,000 feet up. And the odds are we moan about having to pay for it. After all, Wi-Fi at Starbucks is free. And email. So is Skype. Oh, and we’d like a better quality of Cabernet, please, flight attendant; this one tastes like Listerine.
As a new generation of companies teaches us that the old trade-offs we used to consider reasonable no longer apply, they simultaneously train us to want more. My own private driver for the cost of a taxi? Thank you, Uber. Use my credit card to buy carrots directly from the farmer? Bless you, Square. Eggs delivered directly to my house the day after they are laid via a web service? Yes please, Rakuten. A new generation of consumers sees no reason why two seemingly irreconcilable demands shouldn’t be put together. These are Uber’s children. And this is the death of the trade-off.
In financial services, for instance, we might once have accepted an interest-bearing checking account, from a free online bank with online customer service 24/7, as a reasonable trade-off for having no actual retail branches. There was demand for a great online bank (ING, First Direct) and demand for a full-service bank with branches (Wells Fargo, NatWest), but with an understanding of the trade-offs on fees and rates. Not anymore. Today’s banking customers want it free, accessible from anywhere in the world, anytime, with real people in case anything goes wrong, and a branch to drop in on when in town. But they don’t want banks to get big. They don’t like big.
The modern consumer is, in fact, the incarnation of Shaw and Handy’s unreasonable man and woman, forcing businesses to get beyond “either/or” and work out how to give them the “and.” The unreasonable consumer is, in effect, asking us propelling questions. And the answers they are getting are starting to change the face of the categories in which they appear. Just look at the United States alone:
Fast food: I need a fast, cheap meal but I’d like it to be better quality and healthier. Chipotle’s commitment to simple, hearty Mexican food with a side of sustainability has lead to double-digit growth three years in a row.
Cleaning: I want cleaning products that clean, but I expect them to be green too. method makes gorgeous green products that “clean like a mother” and is now in its twelfth successful year.
Mobile carriers: I want the best phones and the best network, but without being tied into a contract. T-Mobile now gives a smartphone without any contract, and it will pay off the early-termination fees charged by those who won’t. Small wonder that it is currently acquiring customers faster than ATT.
Cars: I want a car that drives like a rocket and looks like a dream while being completely electric. Tesla’s plug-in Model S is beautiful and fast, gets the equivalent of 89 mpg and was recently voted the safest car ever tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The point is that if we don’t ask propelling questions of ourselves, someone is going to ask them of us, someone with authority and legitimacy. It may be our largest or most influential customer, or our noisiest challenger, but if we don’t anticipate this, by the time we hear them we will already be behind the curve. This is the corollary of the new generation of inventiveness: if we are not leading in being that inventive, then we risk becoming an important part of the past, rather than a shaper of the future.