Predictive Insights and Pricing Power
871 sats \ 6 comments \ @kr 26 Mar BooksAndArticles
Nobody cares about yesterday’s weather.
If you don’t believe me, open your weather app and try to find it. Chances are you’ll see current conditions and future forecasts, but no information on the past.
At least it appears that way.
Dig a little deeper, and you’ll realize current conditions are not really “current”, they’re just the most recent historical weather readings. Likewise, future forecasts are not really from the future, they’re just predictions based on past weather patterns.
The lesson here?
While nobody cares about yesterday’s weather, certain collections of past data can produce incredibly useful insights that help us make better decisions.
And for data companies, that’s where the money is.
Whether it is Facebook, Google, OpenAI, or The Weather Network, pricing power does not come from collecting data.
What matters is whether a company can transform past data into useful insights for customers.
————————————————————-
This is one section from a new blog post I’m writing, figured it was worth sharing as a teaser before the full post is published
write
preview
related posts
274 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 26 Mar
My interest is piqued.
I have tried to find past weather predictions. You are right: it's not easy.
reply
85 sats \ 2 replies \ @DiedOnTitan 26 Mar
An interesting counter example to your thesis is the Bitcoin blockchain itself. No one cares about, nor can anyone predict, future transactions, but everyone cares about old transactions and more importantly, validating those older transactions. It's the history that is important, not the predictive value of that history.
reply
24 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr OP 26 Mar
good point!
one could argue that it’s only certain collections (confirmed transactions) of past data that is transformed into useful insights (who owns all the bitcoin) for making future decisions.
reply
110 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiedOnTitan 27 Mar
What matters is whether a company can transform past data into useful insights for customers.
@kr I remain quite interested in this thesis, and I think your point has a lot of merit. Not trying to throw cold water on the observation. That being said....
I have to walk back my observation that, "no one cares about ... future transactions". Bitcoin miners' entire business model depends on anticipating future difficulty increases in order to plan their capital intensive expansion. So it is not the history of transactions that are important for predicting future growth, but the history of hashrate that can indeed be useful for predicting future growth. And it makes for a remarkable graph.
reply
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @riberet19 26 Mar
It's true, almost no one cares, I've never looked for past weather predictions.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 26 Mar
In most cases, as they say, 'History repeats itself'. So, predictions are always based on the historical outcomes, be it any situation.
reply