Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Varian Rule" in English language version.
While the wealthy may have servants, they have power over those servants. When it comes to privacy, what really matters is that we not expose information about ourselves to people who have the power to use that information against us socially, economically, legally, or other ways.
Think of VCRs, flat-screen TVs, mobile phones, and the like. Today, rich people have chauffeurs. In 10 years or less, middle-income drivers will be able to afford robotic cars that drive themselves, at least in some circumstances.
'A simple way to forecast the future,' he [Varian] says, 'is to look at what rich people have today.'
Sir, Andrew McAfee's coining of the "Varian Rule" (April 8) — that the future can be forecast by the increasing affordability of what the rich have today — has a corollary worth considering. The future may also be forecast by increasing middle class exposure to what the poor experience today.
Over the weekend, economist Paul Krugman ... explains why Apple is emphasizing wealth and luxury in its Apple Watch campaigns. Krugman believes that's because all wearables are aimed at giving you an experience that only super rich people can have.
Consider the Varian rule, which says that you can forecast the future by looking at what the rich have today — that is, that what affluent people will want in the future is, in general, something like what only the truly rich can afford right now.
Luxury is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed. Such, at any rate, is the provocative argument put forward by Hal Varian, Google's chief economist. Recently dubbed "the Varian rule", it states that to predict the future, we just have to look at what rich people already have and assume that the middle classes will have it in five years and poor people will have it in 10.
