Every day, about 16,000,000 hours of tennis are played. The percentage of that devoted to tournament play approaches zero.
So why is informal tennis built on a zero-sum model? In a game, every shot is designed to have the opponent fail. The goal is to have your opponent miss the ball, hit it into the net, or simply wear them out.
What would happen to the experience of the game if the goal was to help your opponent do ever better? To extend, to thrive, and to be in sync?
No one wins at jazz. That’s the point.
There are plenty of ways we could imagine keeping score–from high-tech watch-tracking solutions to simple ways of counting and encouragement. There are many ways to win, and we can find useful ones if we try.
The lazy use of points revolves around elimination, scarcity, and solo victory.
But we’re not lazy if we don’t want to be.