By Tony Poulos (@tonypoulos), Market Strategist at TM Forum

My biggest fear in this digital age is simply complexity. That may sound like an oxymoron, but the greatest redeeming feature of going digital is that it simplifies so many things, yet we humans have an amazing ability to take the simplest things and make them more complex. For instance, I used to…

…have one email account, now I have ten.

Not because I’m an email egotist, it’s just that I do work for different companies that want to me to ‘wear’ their identity so people know I am part of their ‘tribe.’ I also need multiple email addresses to get Apple apps from different app stores because it has a policy that one ID is limited to one app store and the only way I can beat the digital rights management issue is to buy stuff from different places.

…have one bank account with one credit card linked to it.

I’ve now lost count because some banks have good digital banking services, others don’t. Some have NFC enabled cards and stickers for my non-NFC smartphone, some don’t. Others have mobile banking apps, many don’t.

…have one phone and one PC – now I carry three mobiles, a notebook and a tablet everywhere I go.

I refuse to roam with any mobile operator because I’m terrified of bill shock, so I buy local SIM cards wherever I am and have become a Wi-Fi warrior, seeking out a connection, preferably free, anywhere I go.

…access Google via a browser to find and do anything I wanted on the web.

Now I have 102 apps (from over 200,000 available) to do basically the same things. I am told that apps are simpler to use but it takes me a minute or so of scrolling through pages of apps to find the one I need to make my life simpler, if not faster.

…like Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family (and before that I even liked MySpace), but they’ve changed.

They used to do one thing really, really well. Now they do many things, most of which I have no need for, and some not so well.

I’m sure I am not alone with my ‘digital dilemmas’ but seriously wonder if complexity won’t be the downfall of many digital service providers. Staying in business is all about recurring revenues.

It’s great to sell one million apps but unless you can keep coming up with new ones or charge for upgrades on existing ones, the revenue stream drops away very quickly.

Alternatively, in-app billing can be used to generate revenues for different levels of a game, or getting preferential service but this requires more sophisticated software and real-time interaction with large numbers of players across disparate geographies. And these require broader, more sophisticated payment and collection facilities to actually get the funds.

The newer high-interest digital sectors such as eHealth, Smart Grid, automotive, mPayments are filling fast with a plethora of new players. Differentiation of services will be the prime competitive driver, but differentiation also creates complexity.

The ISPs and Communications Service Providers (CSPs) have been through the complexity evolution and now provide the networks, or arteries, their goods and services to be delivered through. Fortunately, the digital services world has the recent history of the CSPs to learn from, if it chooses to.