I agree with you, but even friendly customer service people sometimes burn out during the week and slip up. It goes back to your blog a few days ago where the employer shouldn’t use up the employee so there is nothing left of him.

For me, I have battled four consecutive years of record breaking drought conditions. We have managed to grow an average of 22% year over year through that. The first two years of those droughts were really tough to navigate. But, now that we are somewhat used to it, we don’t count on in climate weather conditions like we used to. However, we’re optimistic and ready for the bad weather when it does come. Being able to adapt quickly has proved to serve us well in the business this year.

My business was 2M and I was preparing for growth. Then this year we saw 30% drop in demand and each month we expected the next month to see the catch up. It never came and we are finishing in the red. I didn’t make adjustments fast enough and options are limited. Now rethinking how to approach next year. Watched break even SOE and contemplating.

I did not know this, nice lesson Larry.
Thank you

The energy and material requirements for AI data centers are ludicrous. AI may increase productivity. Productivity of what? Why? So we can consume more with less effort? AI advertising is a good thing, of course. How else is it going to hack our Paleolithic neuro-reward systems to get us to buy more things? #economicmachine

From AI itself: “The billboard that talks back”. “Your disappointment is the correct emotional response to a “bait and switch.” We were sold a super-intelligence; we are being delivered a super-salesman.

The way out is to treat AI as a tool you wield (like a hammer), not an oracle you obey, and to build a business that relies on human relationships (referrals) rather than algorithmic permission.”

It’s not all about ads because a lot of the functions aren’t related to products. However, it is certainly about money. I’m very thankful that there is competition in this marketplace. ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok are leaders in the field and all charge comparable amounts for less-limited use of their service. I fully expect that they will soon be showing ads in order to pay for the service of those that don’t pay for a subscription, just like all other software. OpenAI also charges for usage but it’s more on the backend of software products. Many new software products integrate AI into their programs to accomplish complex tasks faster. They pay AI engines to perform the work and pass along the cost to their customers who rent their software. (Personally owned software is well on it’s way to being a thing of the past)
What we have done it gone full circle in a huge way. When computers were first getting started everyone used dumb terminals to tap into huge mainframe computers. Then technology improved and much smaller computers could do the same things. Then the personal computer became mainstream in the 80s and eventually everyone had one or several in their homes and businesses. Now we seem to be moving back to “dumb terminals” where our devices simply access the centralized computing system. We call our phones “smart” but what could they truly do if they weren’t tied into the Apple or Google systems or the internet? My phone without internet connectivity is a very dumb phone with very limited capability. That’s the way they want it though. Because I have to pay to play and if I don’t they cut me off.
This sounds like a great topic for Tanner to write a paper on! The discussion surrounding our dependence on technology and digital data would be one worth having. It would also be interesting to analyze the power requirements of original mainframes, then personal computers and now phone, tablets, PCs and data centers. Did the power requirements ever plateau or did they continually rise since computers were invented? Lot’s of questions here to answer and then one big one. Are we headed in a good/better direction or should there be some corrections?