this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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With administrative, I meant that IT is a about information flow - defining rules how data is consumed, transformed and ultimately output. These by definition of a classic business I'd see as administrative.
I agree the wording isn't good, and I didn't mean it as in "anyone working in IT is just performing administrative tasks", but rather that the field of IT is traditionally more of an enabler of other businesses.
The mechanic is usually the actual worker - you run a repair shop - but his spare parts management is an administrative task, and nowadays usually implemented by an IT solution.
But what is being repaired? A machine of some kind? And the machine is operated in pursuit of another actual productive activity, right?
Machines are just about the application of mechanical force in some way, and that in itself isn't an end goal. Instead, we want that machine to move stuff from one place to another, to separate things that are apart or smush/mix separate things together, to apply heat or cooling to stuff, to transmit radiation or light in particular patterns.
Everything in the economy is just enabling other parts of the economy (including the informal parts of the economy). Physical movement of objects isn't special, compared to anything else: kicking a ball on TV, singing into a microphone, authorizing a wire transfer, entering a purchase order, answering a phone, etc.
I'm not seeing a real distinction between an IT consulting business and a heavy equipment maintenance/repair business. The business itself is there to provide services to other businesses.
My point was not only that aspect, but also about the fact that input and output of the task is information. And while information itself can be a "product" or be provided as a service, in most cases, it's not.
But anyhow, I feel like I'm overexplaining myself over a term I said wasn't good.
Sure, but my point is that the same is true of physical machines. People don't want working machines for the sake of working machines. They want working machines to actually do something else, to output a "product" of that machine's operation.
And viewed in that way, information services are as much a standalone "product" as maintenance/repair services. Information services account for trillions of dollars of economic activity for a reason.