Say's

You may find my grumble yesterday irrelevant, but the water is much deeper once you consider other similar scenarios.

One simple example that I learn recently is the housekeeper:

One hundred years ago, there was only the broom for one to work with, and it took quite a bit of sweat and energy to make your house clean. When the vacuum cleaner (and numerous other similar gadgets) became available, did it reduce the manual work ? True, the house became much cleaner than what a broom could do, but our expectation was also higher. In other words, the electric toy could achieve a level of cleanliness by broom with less work, but it took the same work for the housekeeper if he has to get the place clean to the standard of a vacuum cleaner.

Similarly, when we had to write our own clinical notes and discharge summaries, we all used the KISS principle. With the invention of copy-and-paste, it saves us time to write, but we probably use the same amount of, if not more, time to read others' notes and summaries - because they are now much longer than 10 years ago, and the useful information almost always buried in the jungle of words copied from everywhere.

That's the Say's Law in economy: Supply creates demand.

PS. Haven't you heard of KISS ? It stands for Keep It Smart and Simple.

Go read Steven Silbiger.