Steak and Swiss Watches? Potato, PotAHto?

You know that feeling, like you aren't quite full even though you just ate a ton of food? That, "I just ate a whole box of Easy Mac and my stomach is bloated... but I could eat more" feeling? That, "I just ate straight carbs and no nutrients" feeling?  That, "Well, at least it only cost me 5 bucks" feeling? Isn't it so much more satisfying when pay day comes, you get to go out to eat, and you bite into a juicy steak with potatoes and broccoli?

Iris Chyi poses this very question, the Ramen Noodles theory, in regards to online news. The theory, in a nutshell (or pasta shell, if you will) goes like this: Online news is an inferior good, meaning that people consume less when income increases because they would rather consume normal goods, like steak. This theory, in my opinion, seems accurate enough.  Take my life as Exhibit A: My personal preference is to hold a newspaper or flip the pages of a magazine or turn on my television and watch the news.  Buuuuut, what do I normally end up doing because I am running late, because it is convenient, because there is an abundance of it, because I am a broke college student? I end up consuming free online information. 

Chyi cites a Harris poll that shows us the 55% of U.S. Internet users believe traditional media as we know it will not exist in 10 years, even though 67% still prefer getting news from legacy media. This misconception, the "print newspapers are dying" narrative, is so prevalent that even the journalists believe it.  But, as the Ramen Noodles Theory goes, the more money/time we have to spend, the more we will indulge in steak...ahem, I mean, tradition media. 

I ran across an article that asked an interesting question: How are traditional, analog watchmakers surviving the digital age?

You know the kind: Rolex, Tag Heuer. Expensive, handmade pieces of craftsmanship that are passed down for generations and become “heirlooms.” They last. But with a phone glued to your hand and time displayed on every screen all around us…what is the point of dropping a grand on a watch?  Steak.  That’s why.  This product, as the author puts it, “tells the time but is timeless.”

 

"These days, nobody needs a watch to know the time. Time is all around us, displayed on every computer, phone and microwave oven. The Swiss watchmakers realize this. They market their mechanical watches as not only accurate but also deeply symbolic. For those willing to spend $30,000, a traditional Swiss watch marks its owner as a man or woman who appreciates quality, artistry and ingenuity,” Clive Thompson for the New York Times writes.

When the Apple watch came out, the industry froze in panic.  Will this mark the end of the industry? they quickly recovered. The author writes “Much of the allure, of course, was Apple’s famously elegant design...the watch is a smaller version of an iPhone, essentially.” The article points out the limitations of the Apple Watch: one being, you have to charge it every night.  Another, the digi-layout suggests that at some point, people don’t appreciate it as much as an expensive piece of wrist candy that lasts longer.  So Swiss watchmakers countered with the opposite: a smartwatch that retains the elegance of a handmade, analog product.

Here’s how it functions: "Instead, it would combine the functions of a Fitbit, a device that tracks physical activity (or more), with a traditional Swiss timepiece, a $1,200 entry-level Frédérique Constant watch.” And “In pursuing an analog design, they hit upon an intriguing concept. Using the phone app, the owner can set an activity goal, like 8,000 steps for a day. Then the watch displays how close you are to meeting it, using the hand on a small, secondary dial: At 2,000 steps, for example, the hand would point to 3 o’clock, signifying 25 percent. Eventually, the dial could quantify all sorts of data: How full is your inbox? How close is your friend to arriving at the restaurant?... This approach is superior to the blunt accuracy of a screen. A watch hand is “glanceable,” as he puts it, because it’s only semi-accurate; we peek at an analog wall clock to get a general sense of the time of day, not a precise one.”

But people, like with the paper vs. online debate, assume that digital watches will take over the world and analog will die.  Swiss watchmakers disagree- they anticipate a spike in profits.  As Apple-Watch-Wearers get more used to checking the time on their wrist, they will learn to appreciate the rich, full, steak-like feeling of wearing a mechanical, analog watch (especially one with additional digi-smart-features.)

Can the same be said for online news? Can well done online news spike a newfound interest in news and current events in Generation Y and Millennials, causing them to appreciate traditional formats?  Something to think about.