Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#61

Post by PeterisP » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #43

handrous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a suspicion for some years that productivity increases from the addition of computers and software to an operation is very uneven, and that apparent great progress overall is because it's a 1000x improvement in select areas while being a 0.5-1.05x change in most areas, with somewhat negative change perhaps even being the norm.

Perhaps. Why though? Why aren't HR, accounting or other such tasks more productive with computers than without?

Well, they certainly are, you need a much smaller department to do the same things, and those departments relied on people like "secretarial pool" for typing documents, people carrying internal mail, etc - so productivity of generic business administration tasks certainly has increased.

However all of those gains would appear with basic "office computerization" in late 1990s and early 2000s (which is quite visible as productivity growth in the article) with wordperfect/word and visicalc/1-2-3/excel, and not meaningfully changed with more recent develpoments. Accounting today is automated roughly as much as you could in 2000, at least if you were up to date with year 2000 tech.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#62

Post by barry-cotter » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

tibbetts wrote: post #13

The phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs also seems highly relevant: https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ If software causes soft cost savings (reducing the number of required people) the savings may not actually be realized. The internal feudalism of large enterprises protected by monopolistic moats means people resist headcount reductions. And since these large enterprises still employ the majority of people, they are ove…

> Alienation Is Not ‘Bullshit’: An Empirical Critique of Graeber’s Theory of BS Jobs

> David Graeber’s ‘bullshit jobs theory’ has generated a great deal of academic and public interest. This theory holds that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognise as being useless and of no social value. Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypotheses. Although we find that the perception of doing useless work is strongly associated with poor wellbeing, our findings contradict the main propositions of Graeber’s theory. The proportion of employees describing their jobs as useless is low and declining and bears little relationship to Graeber’s predictions. Marx’s concept of alienation and a ‘Work Relations’ approach provide inspiration for an alternative account that highlights poor management and toxic workplace environments in explaining why workers perceive paid work as useless.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211015067

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#63

Post by swalsh » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #59

swalsh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the not too distant future, competition for immigration is going to be tough. I wonder if the US has the political atmosphere to offer competitive packages to win over the immigrants we'll need.

Why do you think that? It feels that the mid-term (e.g. 20-40 years) outlook for migration would include a large increase of migrant supply due to e.g. climate change issues in the "global south", so instead of competition for immigration it seems likely that places like US would be able to pick whatever kind of migrants they'd prefer to allow.

Yes, supply of immigrants will increase because of climate change, but I think it's important to understand the current structure of age distributions in the world. The US had a pretty large Millenial generation. Most other countries did not. Which means, we're not REALLY going to be feeling the need to take on immigrants for a while. But as boomers retire, and millenials move to replace them, the countries that didn't have a sizable millenial generation are going to be in a position to have a much higher demand. Those countries are going to be more desperate than the US, and will likely start developing very sizable offers. The US is going to catch up though, the US does appear to be inverting it's demographic distribution as well, but we're 20 years behind. That's actually a pretty big advantage in a bunch of ways, but in terms of competing for immigrants, it's a disadvantage.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#64

Post by strgcmc » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #28

Firstly, GDP is a bad measure of productivity. A pill that replaced all healthcare would reduce GDP by 15%, but I doubt anyone (even economists) would call that a catastrophe. Productivity has stalled mostly because people have already filled their needs, so it makes little sense to buy more. Basically everyone have the clothes they need, the food they need, the car they need, the computer they need, already. Screen…

> Productivity has stalled mostly because people have already filled their needs, so it makes little sense to buy more. Basically everyone have the clothes they need, the food they need, the car they need, the computer they need, already. Screen entertainment and information is basically free nowadays. So no matter how much you increase productivity these sectors will remain mostly constant.

I know you are not being literal with your claims, but I just wanted to provide some data, so that others who read it will have some grounded context. Across several categories, there is a stubborn (and maybe surprisingly or not-so-surprisingly consistent) 10-15% of Americans who don't have many of those needs filled that you mentioned:

- The official national poverty rate hovers around 10%, but there has always been much controversy about defining what that means and what the threshold should be: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

- 32 million uninsured under 65 (the default age threshold for Medicare): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm

- 42+ million Americans face food insecurity: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america

- It should come as no surprise that many poor people cannot afford cars and hence rely on public transit more, but that public transit systems are woefully underfunded (or funded but misappropriated/delayed/etc.) in America. Because economic disparity is interwoven with racial inequality, this is not just an economic problem; suffice it to say that, no, not everyone in America has the car they need: https://www.urban.org/features/unequal-commute

- The FCC reports large gains in the past 5 years for broadband and mobile broadband access, but this is baselined against a paltry and outdated 25/3 and 10/3 Mbps standard definition for "broadband speed" (trying living in a 25/3 Mbps household while remote-working, video conferencing, streaming Netflix, etc.): https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-21-18A1.pdf

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#65

Post by WhompingWindows » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

orolle wrote: post #30

swalsh wrote: post #18

This is off topic a bit since the article was really talking about something tangently different, and it's probably a really unpopular thing to say, but it's been in my mind for a while. If you look at the worlds population growth rate, you can see that it is beginning to level off. That world of 10 billion that we were all preparing for several years ago is probably not going to come. If the population stabalizes, o…

Its a different discussion, quite off topic. When the boomers go into retirement, our current economic system with GDP growth focus has a big problem. Our system is based on produce more stuff and buy more stuff. But when the boomers retire, they will buy less stuff. Who will buy supply overhang? Nobody. Even worse, who will pay for the debt incurred to buy overly inflated asset prices, like housing and factories, wh…

Japan is not an apt demographic corollary for the USA. The census recently came out and found that the number of Asian and Hispanic residents of the USA has increased (~20-30%) hugely since 10 years ago. These are younger populations with higher birth-rates than "White" people, whose percentile share of the US is heading downwards.

Japan, on the other hand, is xenophobic and has discouraged immigration very heavily. Combine that xenophobia with historical matters: sneak-attacking an industrial powerhouse in 1941 in of the most ill-advised, terrible wars, losing repute by massacring hundreds of thousands of civilians. Meanwhile thousands upon thousands of their own best young men and civilians were killed by the vastly superior man-power and industrial might of the US. Japan was hobbled by WW2 and has never fully recovered, consider the greatest catastrophes of their history were only 80 years ago still, namely losing a generation of youth, their cities being fire-bombed, their savings being depleted for phony war bonds, and being the only country to ever be nuked. Japan is simply not a good demographic comparator for the USA.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#66

Post by frumper » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #53

dalbasal wrote: post #31

Extremely worthwhile question, long overdue. Productivity, especially in relevant areas like administration, stagnated despite computers hitting every desk. I read the Cowen book (Complacent Class) at the same time I was reader Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs." Heterodox writers from both sides of the spectrum. Same observation. On the face of it, it doesn't make sense. How could, for example, a local college's administrati…

For offices, non tech saavy places, my experience hints at the fact that computers are far from being a main factor. Software is not mastered even by people in charge of picking it. It changes all the time. Users are (might be different with the next gen) digital-first, also software design regressed a lot, as400 terminals were so damn fast and predictable. Now users have desks with various UI paradigms (2021 people…

The DB tracking is the primary benefit. Run a report on all of those paper templates. Look up papers filled out last Tuesday, or July 3rd for the past 10 years. The software only makes staff job easier because now they enter it once and they're done instead of pulling files and compiling reports as a manual process every time the boss needs something.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#67

Post by pbronez » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

hvs wrote: post #32

neogodless wrote: post #4

This article makes me think of the woodworker's dilemma. You might start working with cutting, planing, joining and finishing wood because you want to make a chair or end table, and you like the idea of learning to do it yourself, maybe saving some money, or at least getting some extra tools out of the process, and having some pride in your work. But before you know it, you've spent 4 years accumulating tools, but mo…

A few nits to pick as a woodworker: 1) You never save money building it yourself (at least not in comparison to a standard consumer option, like a chair or table from your local furniture store. This may hold up if you compare what you build to high-end hardwood furniture. But with the cost of tools, you're probably still losing money if this is just a hobby) 2) 90% of my enjoyment of woodworking is just being in my…

> You never save money building it yourself

This comes up in the DIY Audio community. It seems like the economic value proposition is very sensitive to what commercial segment you compare against. You absolutely can't beat low-end, mass-produced speakers on price, but it's easy to beat high-end, boutique speakers on price while getting close on quality.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#68

Post by dalbasal » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #49

dalbasal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. Why though? Why aren't HR, accounting or other such tasks more productive with computers than without?

With paper, you do it your way , which maps to the organisation's way at both ends (and is probably just a minor improvement over the organisation's way). With computers, unless you can reprogram the system (which is tricky even for programmers), you're doing it the computer's way, which is often worse than the way the organisation would want to have it set up.

Not a bad hypothesis.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#69

Post by dalbasal » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #61

dalbasal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. Why though? Why aren't HR, accounting or other such tasks more productive with computers than without?

Well, they certainly are, you need a much smaller department to do the same things, and those departments relied on people like "secretarial pool" for typing documents, people carrying internal mail, etc - so productivity of generic business administration tasks certainly has increased. However all of those gains would appear with basic "office computerization" in late 1990s and early 2000s (which is quite visible as…

Agreed on the timeline. We certainly did have a lot of roles, like secretaries and typists that we don't have anymore. That happened 1980-2000ish.

That said if you look at HR departments and such, they're not smaller today.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#70

Post by qwerty456127 » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

Perhaps because mainstream software of today doesn't add much to what we had in 199x. There already were the same Word, Excel and e-mail those days - . (and I doubt live chats we have today can add much to productivity, well-thought and well-organized emails are better).

It can be possible to boost productivity with something like Roam Research (especially used in collaborative mode) but it would require a lot of enhancements to it and a lot more work on teaching the people to use it the right way.

Even people with skills to use Word the right way (i.e. use styles instead of ad-hoc manual font adjustments and extra CRs) or to use non-basic features of Excel are rare. Teaching (or even getting them interested) the masses something entirely new, requiring a new way of thinking and totally new workflow would probably require enormous effort.