The whole CCSS (Common Core State Standards) is an example of groups with power/influence in the system pushing changes that benefit the true customers of the 'educational system' (which are not the kids, but Pearson et al.). New educational standards mean new textbooks, new revenue streams, new consulting engagements, teacher trainings, golf outings to wine/dine superintendents - it goes on and on.
See also, the demise of Outbox
> What does “Disruption” mean to DC?
When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the Postmaster General they were joined by the USPS’s General Counsel and Chief of Digital Strategy. But instead, Evan recounts that US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe “looked at us” and said “we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will never work with you.’” Further, “‘You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers. Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.”’
According to Evan, the Chief of Digital Strategy’s comments were even more stark, “[Your market model] will never work anyway. Digital is a fad. It will only work in Europe.”
Evan and Will would later call the meeting one of the most “surreal moments of their lives.”
Donahoe’s comments are even more incredible for people with technology backgrounds. In tech vernacular, “disruption” is an extremely positive term for when an old market model is displaced by a new market model that is better for the consumer and often cheaper to provide.
You know, I'm going to do the unpopular thing here and defend USPS. For all its inefficiencies, incompetencies, and overall failures, they weren't wrong in what they said or did. If the USPS had to cover costs out of everyone who sticks a 49¢ stamp on an envelope, they'd be out of business in a week. Junk mail is the lubricant that keeps the postal system spinning, so that the two or three times a year you need to send a letter you can do it without spending -- generates a FedEx quote -- Jesus H. Christ, $14.81?
Huh.
Look, if the USPS would have financially benefited from Outbox, they would have done it. But Outbox went under because it couldn't afford the fleet and labor costs of "undelivering" mail -- in other words, the Post Office explained why they couldn't afford to lose junk mail as a revenue source, then Outbox tried to replicate the USPS fleet (on a very small scale!) on consumer deliveries alone, and was surprised when the effort burned through all their cash.
Likewise, you don't really think you're Facebook's customer, do you? Or Twitter's, or Google's? The customer is whoever keeps the company in business. The fact that the USPS can deliver everyday stuff cheaply is their hook. The junk mail is the business model, just like AdWords is Google's business model. The fact that a couple of Cap Hill aides failed to understand how basic corporate finance works says more about the average economic knowledge of the professional political class than the internal mechanics of the Post Office.
> “disruption” is an extremely positive term for when an old market model is displaced by a new market model that is better for the consumer and often cheaper to provide.
Not to me. It's a term for using a bathroom in such a way as to make it unusable to others (thanks, Gilfoyle!).
We're definitely past one cuil here, but you raise another interesting idea: could you imagine measuring something like a cuil for a block of quotations?
I've noticed a lot of quote sets are just bunches of interesting ideas. Some are very finely selected to avoid overlap, forming a sort of axiom basis for the curator, but many are just a honkin' pile of neat quips. So how would you measure along that scale? To date, the cuil is largely a witty remark on bizarrely off-topic search results, but it'd be entertaining to think about measuring curation quality.
> - Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, 1985
This is of course an invented quote, but it tells you where the head of the person quoting it is at.