Using A Sledgehammer To Miss A Nut

Quite the phrase. Attributed to the late English journalist Christopher Booker. Specifically when describing incoming laws with significant over-reach, vast creep and disastrous unintended consequences.

Finding fresh light as Westminster just enacted such legislation. The Online Safety Bill aims to do what we all desire. Namely protect children on the internet. Yet its tentacles happily veer into the most undesirous of state censorship and burden from unnecessary friction for everyone. The anger caused heightened by suspicion this is no accident.

The crux being all teens rush behind VPNs, rendering such state control completely sidestepped. Bad guys continue preying on the vulnerable, forever untouchable.

This is proving bad for society. I wonder whether commentator Nick Dixon may suggest this strikes decay ever deeper? His dread of anarcho-tyranny being where all those vast majority who try to do right find their lives getting tougher, sadder and stunted, whilst they see a highly visible cohort who expressly neither offer anything nor play by the rules become preferred, protected and enriched. It is literally criminal. On such division lands burn.

And so it is on the occasional bid.

I myself have experienced offering a focused, deceptively small, fix. Only to see it swallowed by a much bigger purchase which purports to sort that anyway. As procurement tap themselves on the back, 'what a saving'. Yet the truth emerges quickly. It does not. And guess what. That tiny issue soon festers, swells and disrupts well beyond its source. Who'd've thunk it.

Certainly not the rep (or buyer) behind the larger purchase. They've long moved on.

As a pointer, when I have kept in touch, defeated by the bigger politik, I have succeeded (eventually). Through combination of budgetary manoeuvring and sunk cost fallacy. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this though, as buying clans are like doctors, and tend not to admit to their mistakes.

What attracts me to the phrase of this blog's title, is that the mere bringing it up as a concept can be golden.

There may even be a mooted investment that is sledgehammer-to-crack-nut anyway. Let alone one set to miss said nut.

This potential stray aim imagery particularly useful, I suspect, should we be offering a niche, almost tailored mini-solution. As opposed the behemothic soup-to-nuts across-the-board vendors.

Also a winner when seeking a beach-head. That initial inroad into a larger organisation or system. Where I'd reckon the RoI is not only more instant, but also easier to visualise. Making justification smoother.