Sleep

An interesting comment made in Netflix’s Q1-2017 earnings call was as following -

“Think about it when you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. You’re really - we’re competing with sleep on the margin.” - Reed Hastings Link

It’s akin to declaring war on sleep. Technology is slowly but surely eating away different aspects of our lives. The amount of screen time has increased exponentially and continues to increase unabated. In attention economy there are new monopolies, and there are methods to convert.

A side effect of attention economy is that it spills into the way one spends money as well. Google and Facebook’s duopoly controls ~64% of online advertisement market, and they are capturing more than 90% of ad revenue growth. (Source Buzzfeed).

Smart

Meanwhile some new research claims that the new millenials, born after mid 1990’s are on the verge of a mental health crisis, with ever higher reported rates of depression. (Source: Atlantic). A realignment is required on screen time and our dependence on Smartphones. I wrote about durability of smartphones in previous post (Six), and came across another article which discusses the same aspect, taking example of Fairphone (Source 1843 Magazine).

Seven

I have a seven-year lock in thumb rule. It states that whatever I am purchasing, I have to try and use it for next seven years at the very least. This narrows down the items in terms of durability and usability which I can purchase. Recently Lava Mobiles, an Indian mobile handset vendor announced 2-year standard warranty on all it’s new phones (Source). It’s a step in the right direction, next step is to give 3 year warranty with guaranteed and flexible buyback pricing. This would ensure that these devices are recycled properly by manufacturers, and build brand loyalty as well.

Here’s a brief letter I sent to Senior VP Product at Lava International.

Dear Mr. Gaurav Nigam,

My congratulations on making 2-year warranty the default for most handsets. It is a welcome step for customers who are looking for durable products which are supported by their manufacturer. I look forward to more such steps, and would consider buying Lava products in near future.

Sincerely, Umang

Sync

Coming back to war on sleep. Value systems are evolving quickly and there are new normals and things that are acceptable as normal. As technology breaks new barriers and controls more aspects of our lives, we would need to rely on our value systems to achieve meaningful progress.

Best, Umang