> Jevons paradox happens when the cost of a resource goes down, but the total spend on that resource goes up.
I would argue that is not Jevons paradox but standard supply and demand (and this "reverse Jevons paradox" too). Jevons paradox occurs when a more efficient use of a resource leads to an increase in its use (instead of a decrease as a first order analysis would suggest).
> I would argue that is not Jevons paradox but standard supply and demand (and this "reverse Jevons paradox" too).
Kinda yes. How do you derive total spend from supply-demand curves? Multiply price and quantity at an intersection point. Likewise, you can predict total spend by multiplying p and q on the demand curve.
The difference in total spend is difference between these areas. For the total spend to increase with a drop in price, the the demand must rise faster.
Jevon's paradox implies that the price equilibrium is at the highly elastic portion of the demand curve.
> Jevons paradox occurs when a more efficient use of a resource leads to an increase in its use
While that's mostly true in practical reality in established economies, that does not strictly have to be the case. On the consumer side, especially in manufacturing, there's very little difference between unit price of a good falling and input unit per output units dropping as both lead to decreased COGS. In both cases, market realities might unlock alternative approaches (the classic being robot replacing Robert), leading to increased demand.
I think it's still valid to see this as an example of the Jevons paradox: Your resource is money, and reduced per-unit cost means you are using your money (resource) more efficiently. If the total spend now goes up instead of stagnating or decreasing, you've got Jevons
> If you make it hard to change code by requiring multiple levels of reviews, a web of Jira tickets, a horde of people needing to sign off, and other red tape, you might effectively kill a whole class of changes
I remember this theater on things which were suspected to be too expensive with insiffiufficient ROI to implement, except that all the time wasted by multiple people arguing in Jira tickets, sitting in meetings, and writing specifications was likely far more expensive than just building and testing the thing.
For some reason, there seems to be a strong and automatic tendency for older and larger organizations to drift toward petrification through bureaucratization.
Now that I think about it, it's very easy to point to reverse jevon's paradoxes. Regulations around building housing, large org bloat + processes, when the stupid form fill that i need to fill out gets too long on some website...
Indeed. My first thought was that this is a roundabout name for ordinary "rulebook slowdown", but of course there are other ways to increase the cost of useful behavior, not just rules.
It leads to an interesting way to think about company and civic health as well. Instead of focussing purely on incentives, one might assume that many are inclined to do good stuff anyway, and then ask: are we lowering the cost of all desired behavior as much as possible? And are we doing it for as many people as possible?
> if the cost of a resource goes up, the total spend on that resource can go down.
Not unlike hiking taxes on the rich, seeing them vote with their feet, and revenue subsequently catering.
But as long as we reward politicians for delivering blame more than results, this political folly will continue.
Until Strein's Law[1] kicks the teeth in.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Stein#Stein's_Law
> Jevons paradox happens when the cost of a resource goes down, but the total spend on that resource goes up.
I would argue that is not Jevons paradox but standard supply and demand (and this "reverse Jevons paradox" too). Jevons paradox occurs when a more efficient use of a resource leads to an increase in its use (instead of a decrease as a first order analysis would suggest).
> I would argue that is not Jevons paradox but standard supply and demand (and this "reverse Jevons paradox" too).
Kinda yes. How do you derive total spend from supply-demand curves? Multiply price and quantity at an intersection point. Likewise, you can predict total spend by multiplying p and q on the demand curve.
The difference in total spend is difference between these areas. For the total spend to increase with a drop in price, the the demand must rise faster.
Jevon's paradox implies that the price equilibrium is at the highly elastic portion of the demand curve.
> Jevons paradox occurs when a more efficient use of a resource leads to an increase in its use
While that's mostly true in practical reality in established economies, that does not strictly have to be the case. On the consumer side, especially in manufacturing, there's very little difference between unit price of a good falling and input unit per output units dropping as both lead to decreased COGS. In both cases, market realities might unlock alternative approaches (the classic being robot replacing Robert), leading to increased demand.
I think it's still valid to see this as an example of the Jevons paradox: Your resource is money, and reduced per-unit cost means you are using your money (resource) more efficiently. If the total spend now goes up instead of stagnating or decreasing, you've got Jevons
> you might effectively kill a whole class of changes, like "small refactor" PRs.
Or the changes might be "smuggled through" in an unrelated changeset that has to go through the red tape anyway.
The author has discovered the red tape.
> If you make it hard to change code by requiring multiple levels of reviews, a web of Jira tickets, a horde of people needing to sign off, and other red tape, you might effectively kill a whole class of changes
I remember this theater on things which were suspected to be too expensive with insiffiufficient ROI to implement, except that all the time wasted by multiple people arguing in Jira tickets, sitting in meetings, and writing specifications was likely far more expensive than just building and testing the thing.
For some reason, there seems to be a strong and automatic tendency for older and larger organizations to drift toward petrification through bureaucratization.
Now that I think about it, it's very easy to point to reverse jevon's paradoxes. Regulations around building housing, large org bloat + processes, when the stupid form fill that i need to fill out gets too long on some website...
Indeed. My first thought was that this is a roundabout name for ordinary "rulebook slowdown", but of course there are other ways to increase the cost of useful behavior, not just rules.
It leads to an interesting way to think about company and civic health as well. Instead of focussing purely on incentives, one might assume that many are inclined to do good stuff anyway, and then ask: are we lowering the cost of all desired behavior as much as possible? And are we doing it for as many people as possible?
Or also called bureaucracy