The Intersection Of Speed And Proximity

Have you ever been stuck in a traffic jam? It happened to me this morning on the way to work (read: to the café I felt like visiting). There’s a pattern, right? Stop, go, stop, go, stop… it’s almost rhythmic and harmonious in the most annoying way. Everyone in the line follows the dance, led by a car at the front, each subsequent vehicle pushing up close to the back of the next to afford the luxury of driving a few more meters before the next step.

Have you tried breaking the pattern? This morning, instead of playing shadow for the car in front of me, I left space between us. I gradually took my right foot off the brake pedal and only stepped on the accelerator when my neighbor’s car had a head start. few momentum. At this point my car starts to crawl. And keeps crawling. I barely had to touch the brakes once I started driving. In fact, I had sacrificed Vicinity for a quieter ride. I may not be the “fastest” in line, but I certainly glided along with much less friction.

I think that’s the way it is with many things in life. Getting close to something has its price, whether it’s financial or in terms of consequences. You want a VIP ticket to a concert you’re really looking forward to? Then put a little more money on the table. You want the whole story instead of a headline? Just enter your email address. You want up-to-the-second information in your stock ticker? Give away your account information. You want access to all of today’s televised baseball games? Get an ESPN+ subscription.

Proximity and speed are the goods, the products so to speak. Closer And Faster are what is being sold.

You may have come across the “Law of diminishing returns” in an introductory economics course you took in high school or college. It’s the basis for much of economic theory, but essentially it’s the principle of “too much of a good thing.” That’s what AMPM commercials have been preaching all along.

I’m including the clip rather than linking to it because it clearly illustrates the “problem” of having too much of what you want (or need). The guy asked two teenagers to reach into his front pocket to get his wallet because his hands were full, you bastard. But keep buying, the ad says, because the implication is that you can never have too much of a good thing, even if it ends in a not-so-great situation full of friction.

The only thing I took away from physics at university — apart from the gravity of 9.8 m/s² – is that there is no possibility larger, cheaperAnd Faster at the same time. You can take two, but all three cannot play together. For example, you can have a spaceship that is faster and cheaper, but chances are it will not be bigger than a typical spaceship. If you were to aim for largerit would be much less cheapnot only because of the extra size, but also to make the damn heavy thing as fast as possible. That’s a good rule of life. I have no proof of it, but I’d bet that Mick Jagger lives by it, or at least has suddenly.

Speed. Proximity. Faster and slower. Closer and further. I’m not going to draw parallels to web development, UX design, or other front-end things. Those already exist.