The 3-mile-long trains
We've counted compartments as they flashed by.
It was a favorite occupation in childhood. Wait in eager anticipation. From the time it showed up as a dot on the horizon and then loomed over you before it thundered past. No matter how many times you watched, the instant the train whooshed by was still memorable.
Then, the clackety clack sound effects of compartments or wagons rhythmically alternating as they clattered by. It was a monster on wheels ploughing through landscapes.
Over the decades, trains have got progressively longer.
The longest ones now go on for over 3 miles (That's nearly 5 kms!). It's a bit like that game of 'Snake' on the old Nokia phones.
It grew in bits until it was next to impossible to find space to navigate on those tiny black & white screens.
In the real world, managing these trains is also an issue. There aren't too many places where they can be parked.
Take a look at the video link below and the amount of stuff being moved on a single train is impressive.
Containers loaded one above the other. And it seems never-ending because minutes go by before the last one passes.
Longer trains make economic sense when moving cargo. But managing logistics and distributing loads at destinations gets more complex.
There aren't too many yards where trains 3 miles long can be parked, shunted and moved. A solution to that is in the works but it will be a while before it gets commonplace.
Maybe autonomous trains will arrive faster than autonomous cars.
Would you pay to use a search engine?
Sounds ridiculous? When the best known is free, what's the point?
Here's the short answer.
A free search engine, specially one as large as Google has to align with the interests of some of the biggest advertisers.
It may not be evident but if you look for mobile phones , you'll see more ads than links to content.
There have been several articles appearing of late that accuse Google of promoting products and brands instead of true search results. That may be a business reality.
As Sridhar Ramaswamy, who was part of the early Google Search development team explains in the podcast: This is a $150 billion business worldwide. One player has more than 90% market share. It's primarily ad supported and there is no let up to the pressure to make more money, which means there are more and more ads on the search result page. And that combined with all the worries about privacy and big tech and so on, brings us to 2021.
Sridhar Ramaswamy is into his second innings with a paid search engine - Neeva. He knows where Google has problems.
And he thinks that paid search can solve it because it does not need to rely on advertisers.
There's a huge market waiting in the wings and even if it is just 10% of Google, it still adds up to a $15 billion business over time.
The podcast episode gives you insightful details on how search evolved and what problems need to be solved in the early stages and what needs to be done next.
So maybe you don't need paid search. But there's still a massive market waiting to be tapped.
Update: Neeva has shut down. But there’s another player in the market - Kagi
Don't go, please!
Maybe Con UX is the right description.
Dark patterns sounds innocent. Like colour swatches.
But they're tricks used to make things difficult for you on websites. Or impossible.
And the sad part? These are practices even reputable sites follow.
Have you found it hard to cancel a subscription?
Or given out information you did not intend to?
At times, the damage may be minimal. But as companies refine the dark arts of UX, the casualties could be much higher.
They include several sneaky types of behavior.
Ecommerce sites adding things to your basket in the hope that you haven't noticed.
Signing up for premium subscriptions and paying much more than you intended because the price structure is made to confuse, not make things easy for customers.
Preventing you from comparing prices, so that the lower-priced products never come into view.
Piling on extras - this routinely happens of travel sites. You start off with a low price flight offers and then find that at checkout, the price has ballooned at every step. And then, you have no choice but to pay. Cancellation brings about another set of expensive additions to consider.
Forcing an extension - this routinely is used to extend a free subscription in the hope that you don't notice small amounts being charged every month.
Hiding all information that adds a company's costs. Sometimes, it's a contact centre number. Or a service desk where you can speak to human. Or even a way to modify a booking. That is made difficult - on purpose.
Dark patterns are the dark side of UX. Not spoken about or even acknowledged. And it's time you started noticing.
Read up more. And learn to avoid falling for the decoys.
But dark patterns are here to stay