OK. First of all, super-kudos for this response, and I apologise if I’ve come across as uncivil, which I probably have.
I don’t have a problem with your reasoning that, all other things being equal, earning some money for charity for what you’d ordinarily do is better than earning no money for charity for what you’d ordinarily do. I have a problem with how you appraise the value of ten minutes of work.
So, your reasoning:
It will take ten minutes to change your search settings
Changing your search settings will earn 50 cents a day for charity
Over one year, that’s ~$130
That’s ~$130 { in the implicit context of one year } for ten minutes work
There’s nothing else you can do in the next ten minutes that will earn $130 { context-free }
Therefore rather than working a marginal ten minutes you’re best off changing your search settings
Why one year? This seems a completely arbitrary selection, and yet it absolutely determines the value you’re comparing to your opportunity cost, (which in your worked example you specify in $/hour, so not in the context of one year). You could specify five years as your time-horizon and your expected value for that ten minutes would be huge, or two hours and it would be tiny.
Fundamentally, the money is generated by future search activity, and even though this search activity is “free” in the sense that it’s happening anyway, it’s not actually free for purposes of cost-benefit analysis (it still carries an opportunity cost), and you still need to consider it as an input, otherwise you have no reference for the time horizon over which you generate outputs. It is in this context that I consider it ineffective. Just because the output is generated by effort you’re already exerting does not mean this effort is being used efficiently.
Don’t worry about the tone, opportunity cost is that hinterland where it is too complicated to explain to someone who doesn’t get it in one sentence, but too fundamental not to need to talk about so it is very difficult to judge tone when you’re not sure whether you can assume familiarity with economic concepts.
It sounds to me like we basically agree—the cost of switching search engine is ten minutes (assumption) and this pays off about 50 cents a day for forever (assumption). This makes cutting off the analysis at one year arbitrary, which I agree with. You also have to compare the effort you put into searching with anything else you could do with that time, (even if you would have been doing those searches ‘naturally’) for the purpose of correctly calculating opportunity cost.
I think we disagree on the final step—if this is to be ineffective you need to be able to find an activity which is a better use of my time than conducting those daily searches. Since my primary contribution to charitable causes is from my salary, and I use a lot of Google in my job (I would be fired if I didn’t do internet searches because I would be totally ineffective) I can’t think what else I should be doing—what is a better use of my time than doing those searches? Assume we’re only interested in maximising my total charitable giving.
The only math needed is to decide how much benefit is lost using Goodsearch vs. whatever search engine you currently use—if it’s slower, less effective relevant-stuff-finding engine, etc, then it might very well not be worth it. Maybe Goodsearch is like AOL circa 1997? Or equivalent to Asking Jeeves?
You could also—even if it’s a best-in-the-market engine functionality wise—decide whatever advertising you are exposed to has some negative value, but I’d take that to be largely preferential if there was no loss of performance.
If Goodsearch is an equally valuable search tool to your current, then switch. It would be like refusing to put a Goodgarbage or Goodvaccum or Goodkitchentable in your home that promised to yield $0.01 to charity per use.
It’s just a search engine. Assuming it’s functionality remains equal to other leading search engines (maybe a big “if”), then it’s a simple, one-time 10-minute switch in exchange for an ongoing $0.01 per search...or $XX.XX per year.
It seems to me this would be a pretty effective little fund-raising tool for a large(r) organization. Get a church congregation or school to change their search engines over to Goodsearch and fund charitable projects each year.
OK. First of all, super-kudos for this response, and I apologise if I’ve come across as uncivil, which I probably have.
I don’t have a problem with your reasoning that, all other things being equal, earning some money for charity for what you’d ordinarily do is better than earning no money for charity for what you’d ordinarily do. I have a problem with how you appraise the value of ten minutes of work.
So, your reasoning:
It will take ten minutes to change your search settings
Changing your search settings will earn 50 cents a day for charity
Over one year, that’s ~$130
That’s ~$130 { in the implicit context of one year } for ten minutes work
There’s nothing else you can do in the next ten minutes that will earn $130 { context-free }
Therefore rather than working a marginal ten minutes you’re best off changing your search settings
Why one year? This seems a completely arbitrary selection, and yet it absolutely determines the value you’re comparing to your opportunity cost, (which in your worked example you specify in $/hour, so not in the context of one year). You could specify five years as your time-horizon and your expected value for that ten minutes would be huge, or two hours and it would be tiny.
Fundamentally, the money is generated by future search activity, and even though this search activity is “free” in the sense that it’s happening anyway, it’s not actually free for purposes of cost-benefit analysis (it still carries an opportunity cost), and you still need to consider it as an input, otherwise you have no reference for the time horizon over which you generate outputs. It is in this context that I consider it ineffective. Just because the output is generated by effort you’re already exerting does not mean this effort is being used efficiently.
Does that make sense?
Don’t worry about the tone, opportunity cost is that hinterland where it is too complicated to explain to someone who doesn’t get it in one sentence, but too fundamental not to need to talk about so it is very difficult to judge tone when you’re not sure whether you can assume familiarity with economic concepts.
It sounds to me like we basically agree—the cost of switching search engine is ten minutes (assumption) and this pays off about 50 cents a day for forever (assumption). This makes cutting off the analysis at one year arbitrary, which I agree with. You also have to compare the effort you put into searching with anything else you could do with that time, (even if you would have been doing those searches ‘naturally’) for the purpose of correctly calculating opportunity cost.
I think we disagree on the final step—if this is to be ineffective you need to be able to find an activity which is a better use of my time than conducting those daily searches. Since my primary contribution to charitable causes is from my salary, and I use a lot of Google in my job (I would be fired if I didn’t do internet searches because I would be totally ineffective) I can’t think what else I should be doing—what is a better use of my time than doing those searches? Assume we’re only interested in maximising my total charitable giving.
You’re over-thinking it.
The only math needed is to decide how much benefit is lost using Goodsearch vs. whatever search engine you currently use—if it’s slower, less effective relevant-stuff-finding engine, etc, then it might very well not be worth it. Maybe Goodsearch is like AOL circa 1997? Or equivalent to Asking Jeeves?
You could also—even if it’s a best-in-the-market engine functionality wise—decide whatever advertising you are exposed to has some negative value, but I’d take that to be largely preferential if there was no loss of performance.
If Goodsearch is an equally valuable search tool to your current, then switch. It would be like refusing to put a Goodgarbage or Goodvaccum or Goodkitchentable in your home that promised to yield $0.01 to charity per use.
It’s just a search engine. Assuming it’s functionality remains equal to other leading search engines (maybe a big “if”), then it’s a simple, one-time 10-minute switch in exchange for an ongoing $0.01 per search...or $XX.XX per year.
It seems to me this would be a pretty effective little fund-raising tool for a large(r) organization. Get a church congregation or school to change their search engines over to Goodsearch and fund charitable projects each year.
Unless Goodsearch is not a good search engine...