Artificial Lawyer Article: Could Legal Tech Cost Less?

Here’s their introduction…

Could legal tech cost less, and if it did, would that help with client adoption? That is the question that Artificial Lawyer decided to ask a range of vendors across the world. The answers were illuminating.

First, Shouldn’t Tech Cost Less As Time Goes By?

There is a well-developed economic theory that once a certain product has become easier to make, that its price drops and demand rises. For example, if you wanted what today would appear to be a very basic flat screen TV, you’d be able to find one for a fraction of the cost of 20 years ago.

We have also seen this with computer memory. A PC with what looked like incredible storage in the year 2000, would today be almost given away because the components are to our eyes now ‘so basic’. (Plus, it wouldn’t run much of today’s software….)

Manufacturers improve their processes, from the factory floor, to the entire supply chain. That means what is ‘new’ and ‘expensive’ today, quickly drops in price.

But…..those products don’t plateau there. The TVs get bigger and better. The PCs get faster and have more memory. The costs stay the same or increase because there is demand for ‘better’ and the sellers are determined to give that ‘better thing’ to us. They don’t call ‘Halt!’ and then work to provide something at lower and lower costs to us. They go the opposite way.

I.e. the manufacturers keep moving forward. They keep improving the product. Although the supply chain may have improved and manufacturing techniques have also advanced, and overall demand has risen too to enable better returns via high volumes, the world doesn’t stop there.