Thread by @Meaningness

@KevinSimler @context_ing Right, I nearly added a tweet about principal-agent when originally replying to you!

There are lots of categories of things that offer pieces of the service one would want, but most of them are fatally compromised by principal-agent conflicts.

@KevinSimler @context_ing To take the original example, there are insurance advisors and insurance agents (different things), but they are mainly or entirely compensated by the insurance companies, acting as outsourced/freelanced sales people, so their “advice” is unreliable.

@KevinSimler @context_ing And, they don’t do the main thing you actually want, which is not selecting an insurance company, but dealing with their paperwork and screw-ups and (likely-fraudulent gray-area) coverage denials.

@KevinSimler @context_ing [One minor current hassle: my mother’s dental insurance says she’s too old to get any dentistry so they won’t pay for emergency dental work done in November. If this were true, which it clearly isn’t, you should have terminated her policy when she got too old, I think?

@KevinSimler @context_ing The cost of the dental work is ~$1k and it’s probably not worth my time to try to fight this, but presumably a single call from a Dangerous Professional would get them in line, and they could charge me $100 for that, and everyone would be happy except insurance co.]

@KevinSimler @context_ing Also, of course, insurance is just one of 89 major aspects of adulting in America, and you don’t want to have to deal with 89 adulting-as-a-service providers; ideally only one, but at most a handful.

@KevinSimler @context_ing So for this to work, the service absolutely has to be compensated only by the customer, with rigorous and transparent policies against accepting commissions or other kick-backs from providers.

That means it will seem shockingly expensive, to middle-class people, initially.

@KevinSimler @context_ing (Throughout the current economy, everyone is used to getting what seems like something-for-nothing that actually isn’t, because the webs of compensation are opaque. This radically distorts incentives. Broader theme re rent-seeking, probably obvious, let’s set aside for now)

@KevinSimler @context_ing There is a business category that initially claims to do what one would want, called “personal concierge.” They market themselves to the very rich and claim to be able to do essentially anything for you. The most successful one is: quintessentially.com/services

@KevinSimler @context_ing Although they *say* they can deal with routine stuff, virtually all their marketing is about being a high-end travel agent, plus they can do ridiculous things like get a live trained elephant to your child’s birthday party.

@KevinSimler @context_ing (That’s re the category in general, not just Quintessentially specifically.) Afaict they are not going to deal with insurance bills for you, or get the dishwasher fixed, or sort out Mom’s house title snafu, or fill in her 239 change-of-address forms.

@KevinSimler @context_ing Closer to the mark is personal-assistant and personal accountancy services. These are often individuals, or at most very small companies, that market more to an upper-middle-class demographic. They can handle some fraction of this sort of bullshit.

@KevinSimler @context_ing But they aren’t a one-stop-shop, and you have to manage them, and they can and do screw up, or outright embezzle, and since they’re individuals, you don’t have the “this company wouldn’t risk its reputation over this” trust factor.

@KevinSimler @context_ing So… there’s clearly a need here, and it’s clearly not impossible to fulfill, just difficult. As a business, you’d start by marketing a very expensive service to the actually-rich. You’d need lots of Respectable People involved initially to provide trust.

@KevinSimler @context_ing Or, potentially, a big well-loved company (Apple??) could develop it initially as an in-house offering for senior employees, establish its trustworthiness, then open to public.

(Maybe sort of like the “Haven” Berkshire/Amazon/JPM heathcare initiative)

@KevinSimler @context_ing Once you had economy of scale, it could become affordable for the middle class. Maybe it costs $10k/year, which no one would sign up for initially, but once it became understood that it frees up your weekends… priceless

@KevinSimler @context_ing One main way of achieving economy would be to force streamlined procedures on providers. “We are going to switch our 100k upper-middle-class clients to a different provider unless you make this easy for us.” Forces internalization of administrative externalities.

@KevinSimler @context_ing This could be a huge economic and social good, eliminating large swathes of the rent-seeking bullshit that infests the current economy.