Jevons Paradox: The Perils of Efficiency
In 1865, English economist William Stanley Jevons studied the impact of the increased efficiency of coal use.
The common economic intuition said that as efficiency improved, people would use less coal. Jevons argued that the economic reality was different: As technology improved the efficiency of coal use, demand for coal would increase as people created and justified new uses.
It became known as Jevons Paradox: technological improvements that increase the efficiency of a given resource lead to a rise in the consumption of that resource.
I think the most interesting application of Jevons Paradox is in your life.
When you optimize for efficiency, you may find yourself doing more, not less, of the thing you tried to become more efficient at.
In this piece, I share a simple reminder:
Efficiency is great. But only when it gets you more of what you actually want...
•••
This episode brought to you by:
The common economic intuition said that as efficiency improved, people would use less coal. Jevons argued that the economic reality was different: As technology improved the efficiency of coal use, demand for coal would increase as people created and justified new uses.
It became known as Jevons Paradox: technological improvements that increase the efficiency of a given resource lead to a rise in the consumption of that resource.
I think the most interesting application of Jevons Paradox is in your life.
When you optimize for efficiency, you may find yourself doing more, not less, of the thing you tried to become more efficient at.
In this piece, I share a simple reminder:
Efficiency is great. But only when it gets you more of what you actually want...
•••
This episode brought to you by:
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- Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
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