Cheap and everywhere

When a new tool arrives, the argument is usually about quality. Is it as good as the best person doing the same job? Look, here is a mistake. Look, here is something no expert would get wrong.

That argument is easy to win, and it rarely matters.

The phone camera was never the best camera. Any professional could beat it on any given afternoon. What changed everything was that it sat in every pocket, cost nothing extra, and was there at the exact moment something happened. The family album, a small shop's product photos, the record of a scraped bumper, the picture of a menu sent to a friend. None of that needed the best picture. It needed a picture, now.

The same was true of the pocket calculator, the map on the phone, the camera by the front door. Each was mocked at first for its limits. Each quietly changed what ordinary people expect to have at hand.

The new writing software everyone is testing this winter is being judged the old way, line by line, error by error. Much of that criticism is fair. Most of it misses the point. The interesting question is not whether it can beat a gifted writer on a good day. It is what happens when something passable is free, instant and built into everything we already use.

Excellence gets the attention. Ubiquity changes how people live, and it tends to do so while everyone is still arguing about excellence.