The Varian Rule holds that "A simple way to forecast the future is to look at what rich people have today; middle-income people will have something equivalent in 10 years, and poor people will have it in an additional decade."
It is attributed to
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
’s chief
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
Hal Varian
Hal Ronald Varian (born March 18, 1947, in Wooster, Ohio) is chief economist at Google and holds the title of emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he was founding dean of the School of Information. Varian is an econ ...
.
first called it "the Varian Rule" in the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
''.
An alternative interpretation, put forth by
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
writer
Evgeny Morozov
Evgeny Morozov (born 1984) is a writer, researcher, and intellectual from Belarus who studies political and social implications of technology. He was named one of the 28 most influential Europeans by ''Politico'' in 2018.
Life and career
Morozo ...
, riffing on
William Gibson
William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...
's famous quote about the future, is that "Luxury is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed."
A more recent example is the
Apple Watch
The Apple Watch is a brand of smartwatch products developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple. It incorporates activity tracker, fitness tracking, Health (Apple), health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates wit ...
which is initially offered as a luxury item, but if the Varian Rule holds, it will be more accessible in the near future according to
Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American New Keynesian economics, New Keynesian economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He ...
, Nobel Laureate, and blogger and columnist for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''.
But Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, of the
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million.
T ...
Speech, Privacy & Technology Project disputes this conclusion based on personal
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
concerns.
See also
*
Boots theory
The Sam Vimes theory of socioeconomic unfairness, often called simply the boots theory, is an economic theory that people in poverty have to buy cheap and subpar products that need to be replaced repeatedly, proving more expensive in the long run ...
*
Technology adoption life cycle
*
Information Rules
Information Rules is a 1999 book by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian applying traditional economic theories to modern Information technology, information-based technologies. The book examines commercial strategies appropriate to companies that deal i ...
*
Trickle-down fashion
References
{{trade-stub
Eponymous laws of economics
Technological change
Upper class