I don't get it - I sent in my $39 - and I still can't speak German. The iMore headline specifically reads :
Digital Offers: Learn a new language for just $39!
Turns out that the devil is in the detail. I also have to spend time!
We all live in the attention economy. And part of that is that as the price of 'stuff' continues to tumble, mainly because the supply/demand curves continue to give us more and more for less and less, it turns out that the time we have to devote to stuff is just the same.
Consider that the average life span of a US resident in 2012 was slightly under 79 years. That is roughly 690 thousand hours. Total. Tops. You get to choose how you spend that time.
Some of it will be spent doing work, then you have eating, sleeping, working out, socializing ... stands to reason that your 'disposable time' is something a lot less.
Now, how do you value your time? Starbucks values their Barista's at $11 an hour.
There are lawyers who charge their clients thousands an hour.
We also know that to learn Spanish has a minimum commitment of 134 hours (since that is the number of hours of lesson time this fine product comes with.) Of course - it could be more. But let's go with 134.
So, for a lawyer to learn Spanish there is a minimum lost opportunity cost of $147,400 - but as a Barista it's only $1474.
I think there is a big opportunity for Barista's to learn a foreign language. It's a low base price and the lost opportunity cost of time commitment is negligible - and with the language learnt, more horizon's open. A lawyer ? Not so much. They will probably take a 'language as a service' approach - something that we used to call a Translator.
I wonder how many ex Starbuck's baristas are now translators?
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