A business shifting 20% of profit to more labor would

[jmowreader]

7. Your point makes sense in theory

In reality it'll never happen because companies are not interested in anything but incremental profit increases.

Real-world example: Both Lowe's and Home Depot (where I worked for a long time) have lumber customers who need things done to wood that can't be done with the carpentry tools most people have - a circular saw and maybe a chisel. So naturally I wrote a suggestion and sent it up: add a wood shop to every Home Depot. Build a 20x20 building with two double doors. In it put a Delta Unisaw, an air handler, a planer and a compound mitersaw. Also put a small copier. Staff it with an experienced woodworker. It would cost $20,000, payoff would be six months or less for two reasons - the people walking out because they can't get what they need would be buyers, and people who don't come in now would start doing so. Their response: we believe people who give wrong measurements would return wood and we would have to sell it at a deep discount, so we don't want to do that. (HD has always cut wood and it's always been nonreturnable, so this makes no sense.)

Think back: when was the last time a corporation introduced a new product? By this I don't mean "introducing our new women's shirt with a flower on the shoulder!" or "introducing our new car that's three inches longer than last year's models" but a truly new and groundbreaking idiom? The only three things that come to mind are the Newton, the iPod and the 120mm optical disc. Everything else is kind of a business version of a "120 uses for sugar cookie dough" cookbook: lots of great ideas but at their base they're traveling the same road...maybe they're walking backwards, on their hands, wearing stilettos, riding a unicycle or whatever.

And that's why people aren't buying anymore. We've already got that stuff. I have 42 different ways to listen to Stairway to Heaven, I don't need another. I have a car that gets 30mpg, I don't need one that gets 32. I don't need a wrench that replaces fifteen other wrenches if I already have all fifteen. I would buy a Blu-ray player with a little brush that came up to clean the disc when I put it in, a shower with a little lever that dropped the temp 20 degrees so I could wash my hair without pulling the color out of it, a soft-bottom sink so it'd be more comfortable for the cat to sleep in or a car with one seat and a place in the back for cargo because there's only one of me and three empty seats is a waste, but they don't make those.