Battling for Position is Boxing Out
So, there is an interesting battle shaping up in the mediasphere. It's the tax guy versus the tax box.
I don't really watch a ton of TV, but I have never been able to totally deprogram my brainwashing in the process of getting an advertising degree. Often, I will turn to my wife and make some comment about and ad that has just run, and she'll say "huh?" I realize I'm different here.
Except on Super Bowl Sunday, everybody is like me.
Anyway, there are at least two competing ads. The first, and obviously the most effective because I actually remember it was for H&R Block, features the ad-typical dipshit male lamenting over his taxes (or in another iteration, finding out he is being audited). His wife walks up and coyly suggests he talk to their tax guy. Except, they don't have a tax guy, they have a box, a tax software box (with TURB just barely in view). The wife pretends to try to talk to the box.
Aww, cute. They're telling us we're too stupid to do taxes on our own.
Then, we have it's mirror twin. I've seen two versions, but they've got no pop, no sizzle, and I have no idea what the actual product is. A man or woman is sitting across from the tax guy, and he is that boring dillhole they always cast as the soon-to-be-obsolete middleman. And, sure enough, while he lumbers through, the guy/girl grabs the keyboard away from him, starts doing his/her own taxes, and the tax guy fades away (less wicked witch and more Marty McFly at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance).
Get it? Tax guys are like betamax, dude.
Really, this little battle is only mildly interesting to me in and of itself. I actually like doing taxes, and used to do the long form when I was in my twenties just for shits and giggles (because there wasn't any aspect of my financial situation not covered by an EZ). Now, I'm pretty happy with online TurboTax because we don't own nothin' and it takes me less than an hour. So, I don't really care who winds the tax guy vs tax box battle.
But I think it is very much a narrative we will see played out again and again. It isn't as simple as man versus machine, it is competing ways of doing business that will have to find a way to coexist.
Over the next decade, we as a culture are going to decide, for each aspect of our lives, which path is best (and it will be majority rule by-and-large - almost pure market decisions). And neither choice is going to be best every time. There's no question I want a real, actual chef making my expensive meal, and a real actual person taking my pulse and gently hefting my testicles. And I'm pretty okay with tax guys and travel agents falling by the wayside. But the grey areas are most interesting. Por ejemplo, if CGI tech gets far enough, why would we need actors?
How we answer those questions will contribute a great deal to the society we continue to become, going beyond questions of economics to becoming future bases for value judgements. What will be good sense? What will be luxury? Where will we establish or baselines? Our benchmarks?
For what industries, for what tasks, in what arenas will we struggle to keep our tax guys? And when is it okay to submit to the box?
I don't really watch a ton of TV, but I have never been able to totally deprogram my brainwashing in the process of getting an advertising degree. Often, I will turn to my wife and make some comment about and ad that has just run, and she'll say "huh?" I realize I'm different here.
Except on Super Bowl Sunday, everybody is like me.
Anyway, there are at least two competing ads. The first, and obviously the most effective because I actually remember it was for H&R Block, features the ad-typical dipshit male lamenting over his taxes (or in another iteration, finding out he is being audited). His wife walks up and coyly suggests he talk to their tax guy. Except, they don't have a tax guy, they have a box, a tax software box (with TURB just barely in view). The wife pretends to try to talk to the box.
Aww, cute. They're telling us we're too stupid to do taxes on our own.
Then, we have it's mirror twin. I've seen two versions, but they've got no pop, no sizzle, and I have no idea what the actual product is. A man or woman is sitting across from the tax guy, and he is that boring dillhole they always cast as the soon-to-be-obsolete middleman. And, sure enough, while he lumbers through, the guy/girl grabs the keyboard away from him, starts doing his/her own taxes, and the tax guy fades away (less wicked witch and more Marty McFly at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance).
Get it? Tax guys are like betamax, dude.
Really, this little battle is only mildly interesting to me in and of itself. I actually like doing taxes, and used to do the long form when I was in my twenties just for shits and giggles (because there wasn't any aspect of my financial situation not covered by an EZ). Now, I'm pretty happy with online TurboTax because we don't own nothin' and it takes me less than an hour. So, I don't really care who winds the tax guy vs tax box battle.
But I think it is very much a narrative we will see played out again and again. It isn't as simple as man versus machine, it is competing ways of doing business that will have to find a way to coexist.
Over the next decade, we as a culture are going to decide, for each aspect of our lives, which path is best (and it will be majority rule by-and-large - almost pure market decisions). And neither choice is going to be best every time. There's no question I want a real, actual chef making my expensive meal, and a real actual person taking my pulse and gently hefting my testicles. And I'm pretty okay with tax guys and travel agents falling by the wayside. But the grey areas are most interesting. Por ejemplo, if CGI tech gets far enough, why would we need actors?
How we answer those questions will contribute a great deal to the society we continue to become, going beyond questions of economics to becoming future bases for value judgements. What will be good sense? What will be luxury? Where will we establish or baselines? Our benchmarks?
For what industries, for what tasks, in what arenas will we struggle to keep our tax guys? And when is it okay to submit to the box?
posted by JJisafool at 9:08 PM
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