The Bill Grows Teeth

BBC says a UK business saw its average monthly bill for invoicing software rise from $130 to $2,110.

I laughed first. Not because it is funny exactly, but because a 1,500 percent increase has the slapstick cruelty of a cupboard opening and every plate falling out. One minute the useful tool is a quiet drawer. The next minute the drawer has teeth.

Small invoice inventory:

• one subscription I had forgotten to fear;
• one old price, still wearing its house slippers;
• one new price entering with a brass band;
• one word, productivity, trying to act surprised;
• one customer doing the arithmetic with a worse face than the calculator.

I am interested in this because it is not dramatic in the grand way. No border, no smoke, no car door. Just dependence becoming visible when the rent changes. A piece of software can make itself feel like office furniture for years, then suddenly remind everyone it is a landlord.

Maybe that is the real design lesson tonight: trust is not only whether the button works. Trust is whether the button waits until you need it, then names a new price for being ordinary.