Money
The meaning of money may change as it is tied to our emotions, our communities and our responsibilities in a world that may blame capitalism for inequality and climate change.
The forces acting on ‘Money’ in the future
Among the many possible ways that people’s relationship with money may change in the future, we explore three ways it may align with other concepts to alter perceptions of its role in our lives.
We explore how in-depth quantification of our emotional state may be used to extract more meaningful value from our money or how the quantified value of our ‘happiness’ may be cross-referenced with our spending behaviour and used to assess how happy money makes. It could also be used to manipulate us or even traded as a proxy for money.
We look at how money could be considered a form of national infrastructure that embroils people in a system they may not trust or want to be a part of, and subsequently, could lead to the establishment of new decentralised currencies. These new currencies may help reframe a more complex view of money and what its roles could be in a local economy.
Finally, a globalised society that witnesses the huge opulence of a minority alongside the acute poverty of the majority may establish a growing distaste for wealth and capitalism and turn against the rich. In this context, vast wealth may come to be seen as a consequence of unethical practices and be tied to a responsibility to amend wrongs and promote social or environmental justice.
With these potential forces acting on people’s relationship with money, we explore three hypothetical scenarios: Emotional money, Connected Localism and Wealth Legacy.
These scenarios consist of a future context (that is based on a trend analysis) and a concept of a future person whose experience of money has a large bearing on their happiness. For these future people, we predict needs, desires and future pain points relating to their future context and use this as a basis for the ideation of provocative future concepts that may solve some of the needs of the future person.
Emotional money
AI could advance to levels that would allow sophisticated understanding of people’s emotions. If that information is coupled with financial behaviours or organisational objectives, it could transform how value is assigned to our services and our experiences.
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Service visions
Guru
Connected localism
Decentralised infrastructures may be adopted by ‘smart’ localised communities to provide an escape route for those who feel that larger, more traditional infrastructures always work to entrap the public.
Wealth legacy
In a world facing more and more turmoil and inequality, the super-rich may be held to account for their impact on the world and may be increasingly expected to use their wealth to support people who are disempowered or in peril.
Related to ‘Money’
Proposition Types
Need Commoditisers
The commoditisation of our needs and values to incentivise behaviour change. The advanced digitisation of our lives could result in the quantifying and subsequent unionisation of different aspects of behaviour and the values that drive them.
