Consumerism

A week ago I did a quick jump across the Atlantic to attend the 2011 Singularity Summit. It was a fantastic event, well worth spending two days on a plane. I arrived in New York late Thursday evening. The Summit was on Saturday and Sunday, so having Friday time to spare, I strolled down the streets of the city. Very crowded streets. Seems like a lot of people have a lot of time to spare on Friday morning. Shops were overcrowded. I was standing for more than an hour in line just to get into the 5th Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch. There was nothing special inside. A&F as usual, only crowded and the crowd storming the shop from outside. I kept going towards the Cube Apple Store, where I saw even bigger crowd. Ah - the iPhone 4S - I realized. But they were lining outside the store, while others were walking inside. I soon realized the store had run out of the iPhones. As I did not want to buy an iPhone, I could get in. It was completely crowded inside. I quickly went out. The crowd was still waiting for the new 4S supplies. Seems like a lot of people have a lot of time to spare on Friday morning. And a lot of money too.

And then it dawned on me. The trend I did not  identify some years ago, when it must have started. Consumerism. Exactly what has propelled Apple to the market cap reaching 400 billion dollars.

Steve Jobs might have sensed this back around 2000. Or might have not. But building a company entirely focused on consumers was the winning bid. Poor Microsoft. They still target most of their products to businesses. And it makes a difference.

Consumers are chasing the shiny beads. They do not have budgets to fit into. They do not have CFOs nor financial controllers. They desire. They will line for hours or days to get the latest and greatest just to get bored with what had been glittering just a few days before. And then will rush for the new ones. The must have's. Shortening the replacement cycles. No money to spend? No problem. Here is your new credit card. The greedy banks obviously want to ride the derived wave of the spending cycle.

Everything is cyclical. I don't know how far we are in this consumerism cycle. So this is not the moment I would be willing to bet my own dollars on consumer oriented companies. After all, Apple, the biggest tech company on Earth, could disappear completely tomorrow and nothing would happen. Nothing at all. Everything would continue working as usual. Planes would continue flying. McDonalds serving hamburgers. Shops and banks would be open. We would only lose the excitement and hope for new shiny beads.

I think the tide will be turning. It may not be the next year and even not the next after. But I have this feeling of highly elevated irrationality. And we will get down to earth. Gotta get done some serious work again. Return to the Moon. Fly to Mars. Manage nuclear fusion. Conquer diseases. And there is no app for that.