The Important Thing About the Model 3

Last night Tesla (finally) unveiled the Model 3. Many immediately went to work dissecting the minutiae — the small design decisions Tesla made to build a car at such an attractive price. Things like "where are the gauges?" (they're on the ginormous, landscape, touchscreen). Others oohed and ahed over the multi-billion dollar factory that Tesla is building to make the battery packs. But it's not the design nor the admittedly impressive supply chain which is really transformative. 

Tesla hinted at this on stage when they talked about their previous vehicles, and others nibbled at the edges on Twitter: the Model 3 will make electric cars acceptable. Not mainstream — the existing Teslas, VWs, BMWs, and Leafs have already done so (at least in the dense urban and suburban markets)  — but accepted normal purchases. Thus far, the electric vehicle market has been aimed at two groups. The everyday electric cars, like the Prius before them, are targeted at people who want to make a statemen about their environmental friendliness. The Leaf, so far the largest selling full-electric, is weird and wacky looking even though it didn't really have to be. It shares its structure with much more conventional Nissan compact cars; cars that have more interior room and more familiar controls. Let's face it, people who buy these cars are sacrificing range, speed, comfort, roominess, style, and cost over comparable gasoline vehicles. Nobody buys one just as a car.

The other end of the electric market is also for those who want to make a statement. The Model S has rapidly become the car for the nouveau riche, the car to say 'I've arrived.' There's not necessarily anything wrong with this — but it means people will perceive the car in a different way. Even if you can afford one, you wouldn't park a Mercedes in front of a nonprofit organization. 

The Model 3, by contrast, doesn't look like an alien spaceship. It doesn't have gigantic "electric" stickers down the side. It's not priced in a way that makes it only affordable for the top 10% of the automotive market. It's shockingly normal — design elements cribbed from the Germans, manufactured in an old GM plant, and priced at exactly the median new-car price. The most revolutionary thing about the Model 3 might be that it's just a car. 

Gigantic Update

It seems that the return to a slightly irreverent tone in Apple's advertising (see Gigantic and Powerful) has continued. The latest ad, Stickers, features the return of the rainbow Apple logo for the first time in over fifteen years. It flickers in. The ad isn't perfect, it's even a little bit messy. But that's what the company feels like. A bit messy. A bit nostalgic.

People seem to insist that this is a 'new Apple' - but it's really just the internal culture of Apple showing up a bit.

The 'New' Conglomerate

On his excellent Stratechery site, Ben Thompson writes about Facebook's 'Social Conglomerate.' He makes a few excellent arguments about what distinguishes Facebook's spread into different portions of the social graph from previous efforts by other tech companies. The two that stuck out to me were that Facebook is focused on Attention, and that it is building a Conglomerate (of different brands).

This idea - that a company would expand, through different brands, to attempt to dominate the entire life of one consumer is not new. It's actually exactly parallel to a story that began over 100 years ago, with one William Durant. His corporation, General Motors, spent the last century trying to do to the automotive market what Facebook is doing to the social media market. While they carved out a huge portion of the market, this strategy ultimately led to overreach, downfall, and bankruptcy.

Ben argues that Facebook buying WhatsApp extends its influence to the four corners of social media - Permanent/Ephemeral and Asymmetric/Symmetric - with Facebook covering the permanent side, and Instagram & WhatsApp covering the ephemeral. GM, in the sixties, covered a similar spectrum of brands - Sports vs. Comfort and Luxury vs. Affordability - with Pontiac, Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac. Facebook's strategy is a winning one, if cribbed from GM's, because it offers a social media user the opportunity to (eventually) manage their entire digital existence with one login - and one identity - for their entire life.

It's a bit down on brands from its heyday, but GM still covers a broad spectrum of consumers.

GM achieved its goal of creating life-long customers who moved up the value chain - my grandfather progressed from Chevrolet to Buick and Oldsmobile over the course of his driving life (despite a dalliance with Honda in the early '90s). Hundreds of thousands of others followed this path up the value chain - leading to decades of record profits for GM. Eventually, though, the practice of maintaining many separate divisions and assembly lines led to decreased quality, and an inability to fight off competition - while limiting the ability to cut costs. If - and it is a big if - Facebook can avoid the quality decline from being market leader, it might be able to avoid the same fate. Nevertheless, the practice of making huge acquisitions that essentially live on as separate companies (Instagram, WhatsApp) is concerning - because it leads to the same kind of problems that felled GM. And I'm pretty sure no Facebook bailout is forthcoming.

Why Netflix's Deal isn't Bad for the Internet

Recently, Netflix inked a deal with Comcast that many proclaimed as the harbinger of internet doom. This deal, especially such a prominent one from a staunch defender of Net Neutrality was going to ruin the internet's equality forever. 

Except that it's not. Netflix wasn't paying for faster access or better treatment. It's still no faster than iTunes, HBO GO, Amazon Instant, or any other VOD business. Netflix is merely paying for the additional infrastructure Comcast needs because of the sheer volume of Netflix traffic. It's actually quite reasonable - Netflix wants Comcast to have more capacity from its CDN, so they purchased it for Comcast. Specifically, they bought Comcast a higher capacity connection to their CDN - meaning Netflix wouldn't cause itself to run slower under high demand. 

When someone starts paying for preferred access inside an ISP's network, then it's time to be worried. Preferred access like that in the recently-proposed FCC rules. Gulp.

Gigantic and Powerful

As we move into late spring, Apple has shifted its advertising focus to the iPhone. This is a wise decision, sales traditionally slump in Q3 as consumers wait for the new phone. The message of the new campaign is that the iPhone 5S is already powerful enough - leaving unspoken the implication that you don't need to wait for what's next.

But that's not the message I noticed in the ad - there's a subtler message, in the background. In fact, it's the background music - The Pixies' 'Gigantic,' an alt rock track from the late '80s. It's a curious choice, even for Apple, a company that prefers rock tracks from the present (or just past) decade. 

In the context of Apple today, it's a bit more interesting. Gigantic is a song that dates from the counterculture of the late '80s and early '90s - one that formed the bedrock of Apple's corporate identity. Historically, Apple's been the outsider, a funky little company making weird computers for creatives, artists, and publishers. In the past five years, the iPhone has catapulted Apple to a duopoly in the smartphone space, and led to an unprecedented expansion in awareness.

This song choice is interesting - in a way similar to the Designed in California ads from last year.   It implies that the culture of irreverence is alive and well within Apple, even if only its employees understand the message.

It's as if Apple is saying "we're still the crazy ones."