I'm glad that it's a great product, because it appears to have no market. The only reason the OLPC needs this daft idea of charging double to Americans is that countries in the target market won't pay.
"Hey, I got a $100 laptop for you!"
"Great! I might take 100,000." ... time passes...
"Here's your laptop. Got the money?"
"No. Changed my mind. Sorry."
So now the only hope is that idiots pay for machines to deliver to someone who won't pay even $100 for them. This project is a train wreck, obviously. It will die as a $200 laptop for Americans. But hey, everyone learned something, right? Like basic economics.
Agreed. This thread is insane! "Customers will pay you if they like your product." Not fucking likely.
I create and market a product unlike any other in our industry. We charge a shitload for it. Our customers want the product, but they'd rather not pay for it. So we track every single version. About half of our usage is pirated, and that's just the pirates that we know of. Because we charge so much, we give customers access to our experts when they want it, fly in to see them (no charge)... our service is lights-out fabulous.
And still motherfuckers steal our shit. "It's too expensive waaah!!! If it were half the price, you'd get more than twice the users." And if we cut the price to zero, we'd get an infinite number of users and retire rich. Or something.
Jefferson hated Native Americans? So all that freedom of religion, pastoral democracy that defines America is all a big hoax, then? Grant harmed native peoples far more than Lincoln, who only kept the Union together. You'd have to be extraordinarily soft-headed to think that fucking over native people was a primary motivation for this gigantic make-work project in the middle of the Depression.
First, you have to be a Canadian artist, so your music generally has to blow chunks. Then, you have to be poor. Avril Lavigne need not apply. Finally, you have to join a group of people that include Celine Dion.
Your comparison highlights the fatuousness of this essay. Even the second sentence should never find its way in a serious discussion. How about, "70% of Facebook users are in college or college graduates, while the equivalent proportion on Myspace is 40%. Alternatively, 92% of current college students have Facebook profiles, whereas 25% of high school students do." (All numbers made up to illustrate the example).
It's the difference between real work and bullshit. I will never read anything recommended by Taco again.
The difference is a question of what people will spend money on. If you're using the coercive power of government taxation, you'd better have a better reason than, "It's cool."
The moon shot consumed 2.5% of the United States' 1969 GDP. Say $250 billion in today's equivalent money. Get that through Congress, if you are serious. No money, no moon and no Mars.
I, sadly, need more than 256 columns in a spreadsheet. Like most financial analysts, I am pushing for the Office upgrade as soon as possible.
It makes me cry, but there is no effective substitute for Excel.
I don't give a rip about Vista (running OS X at home, and hopefully here at work as well when I need a computer upgrade) but I need a better spreadsheet and it has to be Excel.
it usually takes them five years and three attempts to push out the competition
I don't understand why this meme has so much traction. Microsoft executed a brilliant strategy in the early 90s that managed to lock up monopoly rents on virtually all PCs sold by creating a fortress with Windows 95, Office, and Exchange. This is the legacy that spins cash. I would argue that Word and Excel were innovative. Lotus certainly did not offer as compelling a product as Excel, and I know because I used both and preferred Excel.
Since then, what? Microsoft didn't make a dime from IE and never will. Slate? MSN? XBOX? All value destroyers. None of Microsoft's products have seriously threatened competitors other than Netscape, nor will they. CRM? Give me a break.
A monopolist can live a long time on rents, but eventually, shareholders start screaming that the value destruction must stop. History is full of one-trick companies that died when their original monopoly died--examples of companies that continually reinvent new monopolies (such as Nintendo, Disney, and GE) are rarer.
Slashdot Mirror
How's that working out for you?
I'm glad that it's a great product, because it appears to have no market. The only reason the OLPC needs this daft idea of charging double to Americans is that countries in the target market won't pay.
... time passes...
"Hey, I got a $100 laptop for you!"
"Great! I might take 100,000."
"Here's your laptop. Got the money?"
"No. Changed my mind. Sorry."
So now the only hope is that idiots pay for machines to deliver to someone who won't pay even $100 for them. This project is a train wreck, obviously. It will die as a $200 laptop for Americans. But hey, everyone learned something, right? Like basic economics.
Agreed. This thread is insane! "Customers will pay you if they like your product." Not fucking likely. I create and market a product unlike any other in our industry. We charge a shitload for it. Our customers want the product, but they'd rather not pay for it. So we track every single version. About half of our usage is pirated, and that's just the pirates that we know of. Because we charge so much, we give customers access to our experts when they want it, fly in to see them (no charge)... our service is lights-out fabulous. And still motherfuckers steal our shit. "It's too expensive waaah!!! If it were half the price, you'd get more than twice the users." And if we cut the price to zero, we'd get an infinite number of users and retire rich. Or something.
Jefferson hated Native Americans? So all that freedom of religion, pastoral democracy that defines America is all a big hoax, then? Grant harmed native peoples far more than Lincoln, who only kept the Union together. You'd have to be extraordinarily soft-headed to think that fucking over native people was a primary motivation for this gigantic make-work project in the middle of the Depression.
First, you have to be a Canadian artist, so your music generally has to blow chunks. Then, you have to be poor. Avril Lavigne need not apply. Finally, you have to join a group of people that include Celine Dion.
Your comparison highlights the fatuousness of this essay. Even the second sentence should never find its way in a serious discussion. How about, "70% of Facebook users are in college or college graduates, while the equivalent proportion on Myspace is 40%. Alternatively, 92% of current college students have Facebook profiles, whereas 25% of high school students do." (All numbers made up to illustrate the example).
It's the difference between real work and bullshit. I will never read anything recommended by Taco again.
The difference is a question of what people will spend money on. If you're using the coercive power of government taxation, you'd better have a better reason than, "It's cool." The moon shot consumed 2.5% of the United States' 1969 GDP. Say $250 billion in today's equivalent money. Get that through Congress, if you are serious. No money, no moon and no Mars.
I, sadly, need more than 256 columns in a spreadsheet. Like most financial analysts, I am pushing for the Office upgrade as soon as possible.
It makes me cry, but there is no effective substitute for Excel.
I don't give a rip about Vista (running OS X at home, and hopefully here at work as well when I need a computer upgrade) but I need a better spreadsheet and it has to be Excel.
I don't understand why this meme has so much traction. Microsoft executed a brilliant strategy in the early 90s that managed to lock up monopoly rents on virtually all PCs sold by creating a fortress with Windows 95, Office, and Exchange. This is the legacy that spins cash. I would argue that Word and Excel were innovative. Lotus certainly did not offer as compelling a product as Excel, and I know because I used both and preferred Excel.
Since then, what? Microsoft didn't make a dime from IE and never will. Slate? MSN? XBOX? All value destroyers. None of Microsoft's products have seriously threatened competitors other than Netscape, nor will they. CRM? Give me a break.
A monopolist can live a long time on rents, but eventually, shareholders start screaming that the value destruction must stop. History is full of one-trick companies that died when their original monopoly died--examples of companies that continually reinvent new monopolies (such as Nintendo, Disney, and GE) are rarer.