23 Oct 2015 When Is A Limited Ecosystem A Good Thing?
An article in Business Insider released earlier this week got me thinking about some glaring similarities to our own process. The piece was entitled “Apple haters are flooding Google’s app store with 1-star reviews for Apple’s 1st Android app.”
First, the smartphone war:
The latest ruckus between the two camps has been stirred up by Apple’s recent placement of their first app on Google’s Play app store. It is designed to make the transition from an Android phone to an iPhone easier. But ‘intrusion’ into their peaceful world by arch villain Apple has thousands of the Android faithful up in arms. They have charged into the online app store to voice their outrage by writing scathing reviews and branding the unwelcome intruder with single-star ratings, driving its rating to an abysmal 1.7 out of 5.
One of the comments goes to the core of their dissatisfaction. “Seriously? You think people want to move to a restricted ecosystem . . . ? Google why did you allow them to put this app here? Oh that’s right you promote innovation.”
At the heart of the battle between Android lovers and Apple lovers is this thing called the ‘ecosystem.’ It’s another word for operating system or platform, which provides independent software writers the tools required to develop apps or programs that do unique things on the phone to make users more productive, more entertained, more immersed, more distracted, less social, . . . apologies, I digress.
The Android ecosystem is designed by Google to be relatively open and flexible, which allows developers wider latitude to create apps that do more things, like control TV’s, change the phone’s screens, or advancing a page as the reader’s eyes get toward the bottom. The downside of all this extra flexibility though is a less uniform more complex interface which can lead to confusion, inefficiency, stalls, and even crashes.
The Apple ecosystem, known as IOS, is in contrast more tightly controlled and policed. Developers must operate in a narrower and more regulated environment. The iPhone interface is more straightforward and uncluttered than its Android counterpart. Users like their iPhones because they do what they want them to do very well and mostly without sputters or crashes. They find them more useful and enjoyable for near-opposite reasons from Android users – the phone’s elegant simplicity enables them to accomplish tasks faster and more intuitively.
Now where does our process fit into this story?
Like Apple, we at Beacon operate in a restricted ecosystem. We use three exchange traded funds to position our clients’ portfolios in virtually every significant publicly traded company on the planet, while offsetting the inherent risk of volatility that stock ownership delivers with what we believe is the very best volatility hedge available – US Treasuries.
The simplicity of our portfolios allows us to do many things behind the scenes (in the operating system) to generate significantly more wealth (enjoyment) for our clients – like re-balancing with very low commission expenses, delivering every asset class (growth, value, small cap etc.) in one fund, eliminating the need for high-priced money managers to assemble them, by eliminating needless taxes caused by active management and high turnover mutual funds, and capturing tax losses to offset future gains with insignificant disturbance to the portfolio. These are but a few of the ways our restricted ecosystem provides greater wealth for our clients.
We believe our limited ecosystem offers the very best choice for people who spend more time thinking about what their wealth can do for them than they spend being entertained by moving it about. By eliminating as many financial sacrifices as possible for our clients today, while statistically ensuring they will meet or exceed every goal their value, we strive to eliminate complexity, slowdowns, and crashes.
If you or someone you know is weary of the wild and woolly ecosystem that is active management, with limited attention to purpose, we have a five-star app to make the conversion easier right here at the Beacon store.
