We live in an increasingly fragmented reality and often enough it is difficult to see the full picture when trying to turn inventions into innovations. Very strong focus can be put on the many aspects needed to make new services take off - like general utility,
clinically simple user interfaces, reusing excisting user experience and stressing environmental and other societal importance.
Still - far to often - the most important aspect - transparent pricing showing users that present practises are expensive - is not implemented. This half baked effort happens despite us knowing that this "negative carrot" is needed to make users move -
act logically in their own interest. My own experience is that we would never have been able to move fast into e-banking without charging more for manual processes in branches. The result was that total cost of banks (not really costs for banks - but costs
for bank customers - who pay every cent..) in Finland was cut in half.
Why is it so difficult to add the most effective tool - transparent pricing? It takes some bravery - as media and most consumer organisations (sic!) oppose visible pricing and politicians thus do not have the guts to protect consumers real interest and further
more dimensions in competition.
But we are seeing a new trend now as invoice senders in many countries already are starting to charge extra for paper invoices. For every logical reason the best thing for the customers - also for those who are prepared to pay for the privilage as the lower
total cost will give space for lower service charges.