Culture: Tyrrany of Tech Clutter

Apr 13th, 2014
Select one problem facing the tech world. Select one. Explain background in your blog, and then hypothesize potential solutions in your blog post.

With the proliferation of web apps, web development, and breadth and choice of subscription services; I think in tech the consumer faces a serious problem of tyranny of clutter.

Personally, I have a lot of problems already having multiple addresses, phone numbers, and bank accounts in real life. In the bold new world of cloud commerce, I now have to manage all my online membership/identities, whether they be subscriptions in the cloud, two-factor authentication IDs on top of my already existing IDs, my multiple paypal/bitcoin wallets IDs, etc... given that there are so many providers competing with each other with their own services, the personal clutter that accumulates over time is endless. As more choice of services becomes available, the more unmanageable the consumer life becomes (i.e. how many more Spotify and Netflix services can we really have?).

The key issue to solve here is confusion with user id/wallet/subscription management. Consolidating and simplifying multiple log ins and payments at a more fundamental level, without having to share your Facebook profile and friend lists would be a nice first step. Going down that path, imagine a world where subscription/billing APIs are eventually standardized to the point where subscription statuses of all my cloud services I have can be seen in one view and subscribed/cancelled with one-click/touch. How efficient and wonderful would that be!

To do this today, the only option is to just use one company's services all the time, which defeats the purpose of freedom of consumer choice.

If this idea would be to be implemented in any way in future, it would probably have to be forced onto companies to adhere to as a minimum requirement to do business (good luck with that); or it would continue to have to be done on a limited basis, as no for-profit company would have any real incentive to build support forit. In a capitalist economy, who in their right mind would spend gobs of cash to allow for interoperability with other services (=lose competitive edge) and make it easier for a consumer to quit their service (=lose revenue opportunity). The odds are against me, but I will still dare to dream...