The convenience conundrum

Looking through a distant lens

Growing up in the western part of Germany in the 90s has had a very peculiar effect on me that most people from the US might not be familiar with. On the one hand, I got to experience a comparatively open and free society, where freedom was just a simple fact of life. On the other hand I was deeply aware that there was a constant gap both in technological progress and lifestyle compared to the US.

I would postulate that most kids and teenagers growing up in the US in the 90s did not think about other countries much in their daily lives. Not because of arrogance but because other countries didn't really appear much in their day-to-day lives. For me though, the US was present ever since I was able to actively watch television or listen to music. You see, the power of Hollywood and the music industry meant that the majority of media we consumed came from the US. And with it, of course, we also got a very unique insight into American culture, without actively participating in it.

Of course there are many cultures in the world that are far more removed from American culture than 90s German culture, but there was still a big difference. One noticeable difference for me, was technology. In today's highly globalized world, for the last 10 years or so, there really wasn't much difference from a technological standpoint (until recently and not accounting for China, which seems to be on a whole other level). The latest iPhones are released pretty much at the same time, the internet lets you interact with almost anyone you want at any time, and there are very few things that are really restricted to a certain region of the world.

But in the 90s, there was a bigger difference. And the item that demonstrates it best for me is the phone. When I was a kid, we used to have a red rotary phone which was conveniently placed on a dresser in the tiny hallway of our small apartment. If someone called you, you would stand in front of said dresser and talk on the phone there. Back then, telephones fell under the jurisdiction of the German Postal service and they handed out standardized telephones with a fixed cord length. You could actually get a phone with a longer cord, for an up-charge. But since my family wasn't exactly affluent, this was out of the question for us.

A stark difference to this rather archaic approach of practicing long-distance communication the way my family did, I could experience every time I watched a contemporary US movie or TV show. There, people always seemed to have phones conveniently placed in the kitchen, next to the bed or in the living room. And what phones they had! Rotary dials nowhere to be seen, instead nice buttons and what was this sorcery?! Some phones didn't even have cords! And boy, watching Home Alone in the early 90s as a kid really messed up my world view. I know it's a meme and that this lifestyle as a family with 5 or more kids was always an exaggeration even by American standards, but to me it represented something magical. Pizza delivery. TV in the kitchen. Wireless phones. Toys everywhere. To my childhood mind, this was the dream!

Which brings me to a core difference between Germany and the US even today, despite a much narrower technological gap: Convenience! People from the US love convenient things, which some are attributing to laziness but I think that's a rather one dimensional view. Drive Through banking, air conditioning, ordering take out, stores that are open 24/7 and many other examples show that convenience plays an important role for most daily activities. In German, we don't even have a good translation for convenience! The closest translations would be 'Bequemlichkeit' or ‘Zweckmäßigkeit‘ which have a much more negative connotation than the English counterpart and have an overlap with the concept of laziness. There is also ‘Annehmlichkeit‘ which sounds like something luxurious, something you need to earn.

Masochistic tendencies

I recently watched a documentary about the 3 most influential Metallica albums and there was one thing that stuck in my head: When they embarked on their first European tour, Cliff Burton (may he rest in peace) was hit hard with culture shock. He commented how in Europe, if you miss breakfast in the morning you're out of luck for the rest of the day and might have to eat something like cucumber sandwiches or whatever is served at the given time of the day. In the US, he remarked, you can get breakfast at Denny's 24/7. I know this was 40 years ago but this still rings true for certain things.

In Europe and especially Germany we can be real boneheads about certain things and rules. I wish we could just start loosening up and stop living life burdened by all the legacy constraints we are carrying. Germany, especially, is severely lacking in the entire service industry! We even have a term for it: The Service Desert. Want to get the inside of your car cleaned? Good luck finding a place that offers this service for a reasonable fee. Most just don't. Maybe the situation is better in big cities, but in a normal German town, you're out of luck.

And then there is this notion of DIY-everything. Don't get me wrong, I love tinkering, building stuff and I actually like to self-host most of my digital services. Heck, I'm even holding the firm belief that AI should eventually run on a box at home, without being constantly tethered to some cloud. But this is because I honestly like doing this. You know what every German will be able to tell you: The last time they helped one of their friends move apartments. The last time they went to the hardware store to pick up something for their latest home improvement project. The last time they put on wallpapers or painted the walls in their apartment. Germans are obsessed with having to do everything themselves! And even I am guilty of this habit to some extent.

My parents immigrated from Poland to Germany in the late 70s. I did not grow up with abundance and my father especially has always been someone who wants to do everything himself. So I think this might have distorted my view on things a bit. But my wife (who is from Spain) has commented on this phenomenon herself often, completely independent from my personal experience. And you know what I call many of those things: inconveniences. Yes, I do understand that helping each other is an important trait in a society but do we really need to ask others to help us carry our furniture and boxes for a move if there are people who make a living doing this? And this is where I see a vicious circle: The majority of people don't like paying for services because they might as well do it themselves...which results in fewer people offering said services in the first place, because there is no real demand. And those that are willing to pay can easily be charged a premium.

This might give off a strong "old man yelling at clouds" vibe, I know, but it seriously bugs me how inconvenient daily life in Germany (and Europe to a lesser extent) can be. And I am nowhere near suggesting we go full berserk mode and try to do everything the US way, because this would go overboard in my opinion as well. Rather, I'm pleading to wake up and realize that life doesn't need to be needlessly cumbersome. That we too, can have nice things without feeling guilty or lazy. We don't have to go full "you own nothing and will be happy" and subscribe to any SAAS we can find just because it seems easier than learning to do something yourself. I plead for a world in which we are our own captains, carrying the responsibilities we truly need to shoulder ourselves but where we know how and when to delegate things.

The ideological Spaltmass suicide

You know what Germans think they are good at? Perfecting something. And it's true, we used to be among the best in the world in many things, especially when it comes to engineering. We were proud to optimize combustion engines to the max (and figuring out how to cheat at emission testing). We were the kings of the Spaltmaß [panel gap dimension] and knew how to make it as tight and uniform as possible. We were so focussed on optimizing the things we were good at that we completely lost the plot on what was happening in the world around us. Instead of diving into EVs head first like other countries, we just put it off as a future engineering task. Consumer behavior totally changed and less and less people cared about traditional car specs. They wanted an iPhone on wheels with entertainment systems that match their homes. They wanted a user experience that didn't feel like the 90s. And what did the German engineers do? They laughed about theses toy cars and continued talking about the Spaltmaß. How the hell could we be so arrogant? How far removed from the world are we that we cannot see the obvious shifts? I attribute this at least partially to a severe lack of understanding the importance of convenience. And to be clear: this doesn't mean we should stop optimizing altogether, though! We should be much smarter about what we optimize. Most things can easily be done by following the 80/20 rule. For very specific things, we should continue optimizing the hell out of it, like the ultra-smooth mirrors developed by Zeiss for use in ASMLs EUV lithography systems. But even here we should keep an eye on other approaches and not think that we are untouchable.

It doesn't stop here, unfortunately. We have reached a point in time where our morals and ideological standpoints are actively harming our well-being. The fact that most German buildings are not equipped with air conditioning, has historically been attributed a much milder climate than many other countries. And for 90% of the year, this might still hold true on a technical level. But my god, when did it become a political position to prefer not sweating your ass off in the summer while working? Air conditioning has always had a very hard standing in Germany. I suspect it's not the lack of necessity but rather the feeling of superiority that overcome most Germans when they proudly proclaim: I don't need this! I just open all windows for 15 minutes 4 times a day. We are number one when it comes to Stoßlüften after all. This is what we call creating a cross draft of air by opening the windows on two sides of the room. Worse yet, many Germans are convinced that ACs cause a battery of health issues. I don't know what has happened to us that we are proud of our masochistic tendencies. My very unscientific explanation is that we are all still suffering from generational trauma from two world wars and the hardships of the post-war era.

And this doesn't stop with AC. Every single household appliance needs to get an A+++ Energy Certification or we start losing our minds. DHH has correctly pointed out the insanity of having to wait for 3+ hours to wash your clothes. Don't get me wrong: I believe that energy efficiency is important and that sustainable energy is the future, but why are we punishing ourselves instead of trying to drive innovation by optimizing for multiple instead of single goals? Why can't we aim for efficient and fast appliances while not accepting low quality at the same time? Yes it's an engineering challenge but aren't we supposed to be good engineers?

Skill issues

Which brings me to the most technological part of this rant: Artificial Intelligence. Yes, I know, it's a topic that can get tiresome but I promise you there is an important lesson here that I want to convey. AI is a force multiplier and more and more people are waking up to a reality in which autonomous AI agents can take care of many, many tasks in the background. We should leverage this as much as possible. Instead of trying to prematurely regulate AI, the EU and Germany should realize that this is our last shot at not losing the plot! Let's crank everything up to 11 and make sure we drive adoption of AI wherever it matters! And instead of lamenting skill atrophy, we should realize that by asking the right questions we can get better at what we do in the grand scheme of things even while some specific skills might wither away. And the best part: The ones benefiting the most from AI are the experts that get off their high horse and realize the enormous potential and start driving AI to achieve more than they ever could before. We just need to teach them how to pull their head out of their ass...

And there is another gap that is widening every day: We can rage about the lack of democracy and true freedom in China all day, but when it comes to technology adoption and convenience, they are running circles around Europe and the US. And they are not stopping to wait for us. Let's try to not lose the plot on this one either.