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Wal-Mart, Moore's Law and Open Source
J.E. Kazor writes: "In MIT's 'Technology Review' magazine, Michael Schrage writes about Wal-Mart, Moore's Law, and Open Source. Perhaps instead of spending all of our energy bashing bashing the 800-pound gorilla, Microsoft, we should align the support of a 900-pound gorilla, such as Wal-Mart. Such a symbol of cost conscious efficiency should embrace the benefits of Open Source."
what happens when the technology you are promoting is adopted by people you might not like? You know, the whole anti-globalist thing?
Lots of differnt answers to that question.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Open source hippies. Sheesh.
"Embrace open source?". The hell the should.. just as they should not 'Embrace' any other buzzword or technology. Why? Because to PROPERLY be flexible, you have to look at ALL Your options.
That's the problem with many open source zealots these days. So many of them can't see beyond the purchace price of the software, or the fact that they can hack away at the code. They blab about security.
Open source security? Is open-source a better model for security? In a way.. as anyone who cares to can go have a look at it.. but does that make anything open-source better? No, absolutely not. It's like arguing risc-vs-cisc... someone saying their processor is 'better' because it is risc. In other words, they mix up a technology or methodology being better with an actual implementation being better.
Cheaper? Certainly in some cases. But in others, the cost of windows is NEGLIGIBLE compared to the cost of other tools in use... tools that don't HAVE an open-source equivalent. Tools that have some serious technical support.
I'll advocate free tools anytime... if they make sense. But in many cases, the proprietary stuff IS better, that's reality.
What? It's their property; They can put as many security cameras as they want on their property just like you can do to your home. They can also CHOSE which music they want to sell. You don't have to shop there. You act like they are forcing you to shop there. Get real. I don't know what moron modded that up.
Sure I *love* spending the .91 a gallon I pay for premium fuel, all sparked by a Walmart gas war. They are selling at cost. They have been doing this for the past week. 2 mom and pop stations are now doing the same. I'm sure "the mart" can hang on much longer then mom and pop can.
THE HORROR! I'm sure all those mom and pops like Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron are shivering in their shoes. Maybe they'll actually be forced to come up with ways to be more efficient, so they can lower the cost, too, and reduce their own prices.
Given Walmart's practices of invading cities and eliminating all the mom-and-pop stores, I think I can safely say that they are forcing you to shop there<\QUOTE>.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Wal-Mart is a retailer that drives many other small local retailers out of business.
Wal-Mart doesn't drive stores out of business, ratehr, it's the consumers who chose Wal-Mart over their local stores that cause small stores to close. It's a matter of choice, and many people chose to vote with their pocket book. Wal-MArt often is no cheaper than other chains - in fact, their policy is to price at the competitor's prices and make a greater margin due to lower costs. If a competitor wants a price war, they'll fight back and win, but they typically don't start one.
So how do local stores survive - by offering things, such as service and selection, that Wal-Mart doesn't. I buy video games at a small store - I know the owner, and he tajkes care of me. If a game is junk, he recommends not buying it. When PS2's were hot, he had them for his regular customers - at retail price. If I want a certain used game, he'll hold it when he gets it. Wal-Mart doesn't provide that service, and I'll pay a little more for it. He also beats the big chain rentals by charging less and having reasonable late fees - such as a dollar for one day rather than a full 3 day rental price.
Price isn't everything, and by serving customers who value service over price, small stores can survive. Wal-Mart's real threat is to the Kmarts and Targets - which is why Target went up market and KMart looks like it'll stick to urban locations here wal-Mart can't get space and some Super-K's.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Wal-Mart "passes the savings on to you" by:
- Importing goods produced by Chinese slave labor
- Transferring "last mile" distribution costs to customers, taxpayers, the environment, pedestrian safety,
...
This second item bears more explanation:- Wal-Mart takes from its customers. Customers "willingly" drive farther to shop at Wal-Mart, but usually based on the price of gas (6 cents per mile) rather than the full amortized price of automobile operation, which according to AAA is 51 cents per mile.
- Wal-Mart takes from taxpayers. Wal-Mart generates a lot of VMT (vehicle miles traveled) but doesn't pay for the roads to carry it. Oh, they may pay for an extra lane and signal in front of the store, but not for increased capacity in the several-hundred-square-mile market area.
- Wal-Mart takes from everyone in its market area. VMT by its nature steals from the public good because cars on a per-mile basis don't pay for their negative side effects: air pollution, water pollution (including temperature rises due to impervious surface runoff), noise pollution, increased danger to bicycles and pedestrians.
- Wal-Mart takes from the environment. Besides the environmental concerns due to increased VMT, there are two more. First, there is the runoff from its vast parking lots and large store (during a rainstorm, this suddenly increases the temperature of streams by several degrees, which kills fish since fish cannot tolerate temperature changes the way people can). Second, Wal-Mart makes disposable buildings. Wal-Mart builds its large buildings to last seven years, then leaves them as vacant blighted eyesores as they move to even bigger superstores.
When it comes to Wal-Mart, "efficiency" means "theft" -- not the sort of efficiency that Linux should associate itself with.This is only true where Wal-Mart has established, large scale competitors.
When Wal-Mart opens a new store, they usually sell many items at a huge loss, ostensibly to draw in new customers. But since many local, small-scale businesses cannot afford to match those below cost prices, they founder and die. Once gone, wal-Mart raises prices. This is called predatory pricing, and is illegal. In that kind of game, the deepest pockets win, which is why when they compete with larger companies (Target et. al.), their prices are similar; they each have enough resources to price match the other for an extended period of time.
Wal-Mart has been found guilty of predatory pricing and fined. But the practice continues. Hence the comment that Wal-Mart drives local, small retailers out of business. They do.
You're right, though, in that one of the real problems is that most people shop to save a buck. They'll drive all over town getting 18 mpg in their SUV because Coke is $0.49 cheaper at Schnucks this week.
I wish I had some way of marking every "Wal-Mart is evil!" post as offtopic in one fell swoop. Walmart probably is evil to some extent; every large corporation is. But the author's use of Wal-Mart as an example tends to obscure his real point. The key passage in the article is the closing paragraph, quoted here with every instance of 'Wal-Mart' changed to '[Big-Biz]':
Those of you who want to focus on '[Big-Biz]' as evil are obscuring a more important question; can Open Source break into [Big-Biz]? The thing is, computers really have produced a considerable pay-off for [Big-Biz] and small-biz. That is why they use them. In the case of [Big-Biz], however, cost-effictiveness is probably the sole reason they use them. [Big-Biz] doesn't care about the cool factor.
So, if we want to see Open Source grow beyond colleges and a few small-bizs we need to seriously consider how to show [Big-Biz] they can save money by adopting Open Source Tools.
Implicit, but not mentioned explicitily, in the article is the extra question "Can we get [Big-Biz] to adopt the philosophy of Open Source as a cost saving measure as well?" By definition [Big-Biz] wants to make lots of money and to squeeze out their competitors. That kind of behavior is what made them [Big-Biz] in the first place. From their viewpoint you don't squeeze out your competitors by creating great tools and giving them away for your competitors to use against you. We need to find ways to make the argument that the win from this behavior is greater than any possible loss.
However, if you hate [Big-Biz] because you hold anti-capitalist views, then you should also be against helping them to understand Open Source. Personally I think that kind of stance is both quixotic and wrong-headed. But you should be clear in you purposes.
Jack William Bell
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