If you stay up late enough, you can still see the ads on cable for the "Inventor's Help Line." If you have an idea for a new product -- or an improvement to an existing one -- you can send a self-addressed stamped envelope (or an e-mail, if that's your bag) to Costa Mesa, California. You'll receive instructions in the mail detailing how you can sign a contract that divests you of any profits from your idea, in perpetuity. I guess people are still doing this, because the company can still afford to run ads.
I'm rooting for the Inventor's Help Line, because it's exploiting one of the most annoying foibles of modern humanity. For whatever reason, some folks want to be rewarded for simply coming up with stuff. Actually following through, producing the thing, bringing the idea to fruition? Not so much. Outsourcing!
Anybody who thinks their thoughts have price tags, operates in terms of idea -> ??? -> profit, anyone for whom drawing the turtle or pirate is too much work... these people deserve the Inventor's Help Line. If there's money to be made capitalizing on the big ideas of small-time losers, I dearly wish I still had a piece of that action.
Imagine a world where every million-dollar idea magically manifested itself. Every innovative time-saving widget, every revolutionary website destined to change the way we do things, every hack of conventional wisdom engineered to propel ordinary people to megastardom. There isn't enough money in the world, they couldn't print it fast enough to keep up with all the geniuses. We should be glad that actual effort is in as short supply as it is.
We're almost a decade removed from one of the most prosperous eras for everyday inventors, a period often boringly labelled as the "dot-com bubble." Me, I prefer the "Golden Age Of Ideas." It's hard to believe now, but you could go into a bank or a venture capitalist's office, tell them your idea, and walk out with millions of dollars. I'm serious. I lived through it, I was one of the systems analysts who worked behind the scenes and brought ordinary people's dreams to life. The holographic "h-mail," the mobile gasoline delivery service, the mechanism for sending 50-pound bags of pet food via overnight courier... I saw the magic, with my own eyes.
But then 2001 happened, a chain reaction of financial and national tragedies that finished off the Golden Age of Ideas forever. It's too bad; you lazy fuckers have no idea how close to utopia you were.
