When will tech companies start solving problems people actually have?

Hey, everyone. Huddle up. Come in close.

Closer. Carl, put that pudding away.

Okay, look, keep this between us, but the Macalope thinks if we pretend to be a startup making another AI pin no one wants, we might just be able to walk off with a mess of cash before the venture capital firms figure out what’s going on.

Yep, we’ve got another one! It’s the Plaud NotePin! As Wired puts it, “This Wearable AI Notetaker Will Transcribe Your Meetings—and Someday, Your Entire Life”

The Macalope is somewhat tempted to make up another one of his patented fake gameshows–this one entitled “WHO! ASKED! FOR! THAT?!” but you already get the point. NO ONE ASKED FOR THAT.

And the Maclope fully expects this one to do just as well as the previous stabs at it. Which is to say, not great, Bob: “Humane’s daily returns are outpacing sales”

If trends like this continue, Humane is on track to have negative sales. The Macalope isn’t sure how, exactly, a company manages to do that but these trend lines don’t lie.

See? Right here? The line goes into negative territory.

The Macalope ran these numbers five times. I mean, he knows that’s not how it works. He just thinks it’s funny.

See? The line goes below zero. Hahaha. Ahhhhhh.

The AI pin race is like Highlander except instead of there being only one, there can be only none.

What is the point of all of this? Mostly to shuffle a bunch of money around until a company gullible enough decides to bake it into their existing hardware product.

About a week after the reviews came out, Humane started talking to HP, the computer and printer company, about selling itself for more than $1 billion, three people with knowledge of the conversations said.

The New York Times, June 7, 2024

The Times’s report doesn’t speculate on which products HP might be interested in shoehorning Humane’s offering into but as the company that sells subscription-based printers–with monthly print limits and cancellation fees–well, let’s just say the potential is hilarious.

“What if your printer was a subscription-based service that printed stuff it just made up?”

Okay, we’ve had a lot of fun at AI’s expense. We’ve laughed and we’ve learned. But the horny one is here with a serious message for tech companies: Please go back to making things people want to buy.

And, to a degree, this includes Apple. Of course, people are still buying Apple products. Apple still makes good products! But you have to go back to AirPods, introduced in 2016, to find a new Apple product category that transformed a part of this mythical creature’s life. (The HomePod is a solid product, but it’s not transformative, at least in the Macalope’s experience.) Is eight years a long time? Certainly not for any other company, and maybe it’s not that long for even Apple. After all, the Watch came out the previous year and also ended up being pretty transformative. (The Vision Pro doesn’t currently fit this category simply because it’s currently too expensive for most people. That could change, however.)

The Macalope isn’t expecting something like the iPhone. There will probably never be a product as transformative as the iPhone again in his lifetime. But companies should be looking at everyday problems actual people have and trying to solve them. Spending too much time writing a book or making other art is not what most people would consider a problem. Certainly, not one that needs to be solved by Hoovering up the content they put online without paying for it. Not living in a big enough police state is also not something regular, non-weirdos consider a problem. Sorry, AI pins.

Speaking personally, this furry observer would rather tech companies think smaller rather than bigger. Solve a simple problem people have in a way that feels magical. Until then, no one wants to pay monthly for self-surveillance tech.