Re: Value is in the Eye of the Beholder

 This is an opinion on this article. 


Straight from the heading, you could easily tell this was going to be a can of worms. Philosophers have been largely knocking their brains with the idea of utilitarianism since ages, as well as the concept of what is utility, what is value? 

But I digress. It's already well established, especially with the advent of the Balance Scorecard that there is much more to value than money. And the author mentioned it briefly that it's more than money. Although he failed to make any substantial cases beyond that other than introducing the typical business intangibles and opportunity costs (in terms of lost time). He then, to no surprise, concludes that value is in the eye of the beholder. Essentially, saying that value is what you define as valuable. I am writing this off as a junk article piece for sheer nominal publication quotas. 

Personally, I feel like he had so many points he could have addressed. What are some common "values" that current tech giants have brought to society? Surely, the lack of mentioning Steve Jobs and the Iphone calls into question a glaring elephant-in-the-room scenario. What about technological advances - Internet, Wifi, or even railroads? Is there value in parring down screen loading time? Is there value in one less customer complaint? Or is there even more value in having customer complaints, in a product manager's standpoint? There were so many angles he could have elaborated on. When would it be worth it to spend or even lose money? You can even take a closer look at Twitter or Uber, the current money losers, and contrast it with Amazon who is raking in billions now. 

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