People are Stupid Puerile Whiners

Perhaps you think that a title like that is going to sit atop a rant.

Saul Hansell had a piece in the NYT this morning about Google's new eCommerce solution.  It fairly well describes Google's new service, which would facilitate transactions by Google advertisers when they sell something through a Google service.  Google gives them a nice transaction rate and gives them a rebate on their advertising as an incentive.

Because it's an incentive.  You know, something you get for doing something you might not have done without the incentive.

Webster:  incentive (noun) - something that incites or has a tendency to incite to determination or action.

But the article quotes a business analyst as saying:

Online merchants that do not want to use Google Checkout "might be a little peeved," said Kevin Lee, chief executive of Did-it.com, a search advertising agency. "They might say if you give that credit to some people for credit card processing, give it to me for something else."

Mr. Schmidt [Google's CEO] said Google had not considered this issue.

Eric Schmidt did not consider it because it is idiotic.  The people using Google Checkout are taking advantage of a nice offer by Google.  The people who don't are not, by their own choosing, taking advantage of a nice offer by Google.

I ran into this often as an urban planner.  We would install HOV lanes (High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes).  The purpose of these lanes was to provide an incentive to putting more than one suburban twit in a car.  The prize for mashing 3 (or in many cases 2) suburban twits in a 2 ton block-long Chevy Suburban was to be able to get to work faster.

People went crazy.  They said we were stealing lanes.  They said that the HOV lanes - which weren't there before and were added and were removing cars from the existing lanes - were causing the congestion.  They wanted to know why they were being penalized for not having more than one twit in a car.

I find this bizarre.  Why would Google advertisers feel they are entitled to a credit for "something else"?  Why would Google feel obligated to provide credits for everyone because they were promoting a service or selling a bundled service?

From where do people get a feeling of entitlement when they see someone else rewarded for doing a particular thing?  How does this change how we develop community - when an incentive can become an object of division?

Photo: Matthew Hull

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