Varian Rule

The Varian Rule holds that "A simple way to forecast the future is to look at what rich people have today; middle-income people will have something equivalent in 10 years, and poor people will have it in an additional decade."[1][2] It is attributed to Google’s chief economist Hal Varian.[3] Andrew McAfee first called it "the Varian Rule" in the Financial Times.[4] An alternative interpretation, put forth by The Guardian writer Evgeny Morozov, riffing on William Gibson's famous quote about the future, is that "Luxury is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed."[5]

A more recent example is the Apple Watch which is initially offered as a luxury item, but if the Varian Rule holds, it will be more accessible in the near future according to Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, and blogger and columnist for The New York Times.[6] But Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, of the American Civil Liberties Union Speech, Privacy & Technology Project disputes this conclusion based on personal privacy concerns.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ Varian, Hal (15 August 2011). "Micromultinationals Will Run the World". Foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 15 April 2015. Think of VCRs, flat-screen TVs, mobile phones, and the like. Today, rich people have chauffeurs. In 10 years or less, middle-income drivers will be able to afford robotic cars that drive themselves, at least in some circumstances.
  2. ^ Krugman, Paul (10 April 2015). "Apple and the Self-Surveillance State". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 April 2015. Consider the Varian rule, which says that you can forecast the future by looking at what the rich have today — that is, that what affluent people will want in the future is, in general, something like what only the truly rich can afford right now.
  3. ^ McAfee, Andrew (7 April 2015). "What do the rich have now that will soon spread?". Financial Times. Retrieved 14 April 2015. 'A simple way to forecast the future,' he [Varian] says, 'is to look at what rich people have today.'
  4. ^ Reid, J. Francis (13 April 2015). "Depressing corollary for the middle classes". Financial Times. Retrieved 14 April 2015. Sir, Andrew McAfee's coining of the "Varian Rule" (April 8) — that the future can be forecast by the increasing affordability of what the rich have today — has a corollary worth considering. The future may also be forecast by increasing middle class exposure to what the poor experience today.
  5. ^ Morozov, Evgeny (25 April 2015). "Facebook isn't a charity. The poor will pay by surrendering their data". The Observer. Retrieved 4 November 2015. Luxury is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed. Such, at any rate, is the provocative argument put forward by Hal Varian, Google's chief economist. Recently dubbed "the Varian rule", it states that to predict the future, we just have to look at what rich people already have and assume that the middle classes will have it in five years and poor people will have it in 10.
  6. ^ Newitz, Annalee (13 April 2015). "Wearables Are All About Giving You a "Rich Person Experience"". gizmodo.com. Retrieved 14 April 2015. Over the weekend, economist Paul Krugman ... explains why Apple is emphasizing wealth and luxury in its Apple Watch campaigns. Krugman believes that's because all wearables are aimed at giving you an experience that only super rich people can have.
  7. ^ Stanley, Jay (14 April 2015). "Why Paul Krugman Is Wrong About Wearables". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 14 April 2015. While the wealthy may have servants, they have power over those servants. When it comes to privacy, what really matters is that we not expose information about ourselves to people who have the power to use that information against us socially, economically, legally, or other ways.


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