Did you just compare music to books? When Apple successfully markets the bookPod selling it to millions, the analogy will make sense. I know this is extremely anecdotal, but no one I know has ever read an e-book (certain articles which are required reading for school, perhaps, and they get printed most of the time, too) -- while everyone uses mp3. The last time I've seen anyone walking around with a Discman was years ago. Sure, people still buy CDs -- they get ripped immediately. There is some satisfaction derived from owning the physical media of course, but it simply isn't that big a deal for most people.
Lastly -- no one cares about files being compressed other than audiophiles, and they have their FLAC and APE and vinyl anyway.
I'm with you, man. How dare this lazy asshole release an idea to the scientific community to criticise, or, God forbid, improve upon. Lazy fucking cunt.
Wait, are you serious? NGage is a gaming machine, and had to attract third party developers for any kind of success. 1% of the market simply wouldn't be enough for that. This isn't even apples and oranges, it's apples and bloody watermelons.
And that includes fancy little raids by so-called "professionals", the use of force, and so forth? Over here, you can restrain a suspect if you witnessed a crime; you're certainly not allowed to play law enforcement dress-up and bust into people's houses; this wouldn't just make you liable for any civil damages, it'd land you in a world of hurt as far as criminal liability goes. What happened to the state having a monopoly on the use of force?
On second thought, I don't think I'll be going to America. It is a silly place.
Have you considered, maybe, that the reason these topics attract few posts is because there's very little disagreement, and thus little room for discussion? This does not make them uninteresting or "elitist".
Isn't this a shitstorm. I especially like the fellow who coined the term "armchair economists" -- clearly, his trimester of community college economics 101 has left him quite enamored with the idea of perfect competition and all the wonderful things that it entails. Unfortunately, markets (other than a handful of notable exceptions) don't work like that. There is no perfect information; there are significant barriers to entry; consumers, and in this case governments (Third World governments, no less) don't always act in a utility-maximizing way. The addition of a competitor need not make things better, at all.
We're not dealing with free market economics here, there is a multitude of ways in which they are and can be distorted -- hell, the market doesn't even exist, yet. There is no infrastructure in place. The final consumers aren't the ones making the decisions, either -- governments are. Had I decided on which laptop I'd want as a gift instead of my father, then HP would have sold one less "entertainment laptop" with an integrated Intel Graphics Accelerator. There is a limited number of (quite possibly poorly informed, certainly if Intel can help it) customers. Government officials don't always know what the hell they're doing, and they can certainly be susceptible to meaningless marketing drivel (not to mention gifts). There is no reason whatsoever why the best product will win the competition in this case, and unless Intel can increase the value to the children, for whom the laptops are intended in the first place, enough to make up for the losses of economies of scale by OLPC (not to mention the possibility of its complete demise), a market with two participants makes no sense whatsoever.
This is quite possibly a one-shot endeavor; it has to succeed now, or it will written off as worthless. There may not be a second round -- if Intel uses its considerable capital to price OLPC out of the market by offering their laptops below cost, there may not be any coming back if Intel decide to pull out due to lack of profits later on. I haven't heard anyone argue that the Classmate is a better machine for the purpose of educating Third World children yet, and I find this most telling.
On the one hand, we have a consortium of corporations (you could go with just Intel I suppose, but I'm quite certain that Microsoft are backing the project, as does everyone else here it seems) with considerable economic and marketing muscle, whose sole purpose it is to make a profit off of their operations. On the other, we have a non-profit organization whose purpose it is to provide children with educational opportunities in parts of the world that need them; to reach as many children as possible by minimizing costs; to design a machine which best serves those goals. The latter is what's at stake here -- it doesn't take a genius to figure out which direction Intel will go in if Intel's goals (making a profit) clash with the purpose of the project.
Finally, I'm amused by the cynicism and ad hominem attacks against Negroponte. A project which he obviously feels strongly about (and believes will do a lot of good) is jeopardized by people who're in it to make a buck. If he believed that Intel's involvement would better serve the goals of OLPC, his reaction may have been entirely different. He does not, and he has every reason not to. He's snappy about it, and so am I -- and I'm not even personally involved in the project.
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Did you just compare music to books? When Apple successfully markets the bookPod selling it to millions, the analogy will make sense. I know this is extremely anecdotal, but no one I know has ever read an e-book (certain articles which are required reading for school, perhaps, and they get printed most of the time, too) -- while everyone uses mp3. The last time I've seen anyone walking around with a Discman was years ago. Sure, people still buy CDs -- they get ripped immediately. There is some satisfaction derived from owning the physical media of course, but it simply isn't that big a deal for most people.
Lastly -- no one cares about files being compressed other than audiophiles, and they have their FLAC and APE and vinyl anyway.
Oh, look, you still had mod points to waste. Good boy.
Whoever modded this Off-topic clearly cannot make the mental leap from Opera coming in first, to Pavarotti dying. Sad, really.
Would the term doubleplusexpected be more to your liking?
I'm with you, man. How dare this lazy asshole release an idea to the scientific community to criticise, or, God forbid, improve upon. Lazy fucking cunt.
Wait, are you serious? NGage is a gaming machine, and had to attract third party developers for any kind of success. 1% of the market simply wouldn't be enough for that. This isn't even apples and oranges, it's apples and bloody watermelons.
And that includes fancy little raids by so-called "professionals", the use of force, and so forth? Over here, you can restrain a suspect if you witnessed a crime; you're certainly not allowed to play law enforcement dress-up and bust into people's houses; this wouldn't just make you liable for any civil damages, it'd land you in a world of hurt as far as criminal liability goes. What happened to the state having a monopoly on the use of force? On second thought, I don't think I'll be going to America. It is a silly place.
Okay, colour me confused; when did vigilantism become legal? Must've missed that memo.
It is not technically legal, and would be frowned upon as a business model for an international corporation.
It'll be fascinating to leave it on while you sleep.
Have you considered, maybe, that the reason these topics attract few posts is because there's very little disagreement, and thus little room for discussion? This does not make them uninteresting or "elitist".
Isn't this a shitstorm. I especially like the fellow who coined the term "armchair economists" -- clearly, his trimester of community college economics 101 has left him quite enamored with the idea of perfect competition and all the wonderful things that it entails. Unfortunately, markets (other than a handful of notable exceptions) don't work like that. There is no perfect information; there are significant barriers to entry; consumers, and in this case governments (Third World governments, no less) don't always act in a utility-maximizing way. The addition of a competitor need not make things better, at all.
We're not dealing with free market economics here, there is a multitude of ways in which they are and can be distorted -- hell, the market doesn't even exist, yet. There is no infrastructure in place. The final consumers aren't the ones making the decisions, either -- governments are. Had I decided on which laptop I'd want as a gift instead of my father, then HP would have sold one less "entertainment laptop" with an integrated Intel Graphics Accelerator. There is a limited number of (quite possibly poorly informed, certainly if Intel can help it) customers. Government officials don't always know what the hell they're doing, and they can certainly be susceptible to meaningless marketing drivel (not to mention gifts). There is no reason whatsoever why the best product will win the competition in this case, and unless Intel can increase the value to the children, for whom the laptops are intended in the first place, enough to make up for the losses of economies of scale by OLPC (not to mention the possibility of its complete demise), a market with two participants makes no sense whatsoever.
This is quite possibly a one-shot endeavor; it has to succeed now, or it will written off as worthless. There may not be a second round -- if Intel uses its considerable capital to price OLPC out of the market by offering their laptops below cost, there may not be any coming back if Intel decide to pull out due to lack of profits later on. I haven't heard anyone argue that the Classmate is a better machine for the purpose of educating Third World children yet, and I find this most telling.
On the one hand, we have a consortium of corporations (you could go with just Intel I suppose, but I'm quite certain that Microsoft are backing the project, as does everyone else here it seems) with considerable economic and marketing muscle, whose sole purpose it is to make a profit off of their operations. On the other, we have a non-profit organization whose purpose it is to provide children with educational opportunities in parts of the world that need them; to reach as many children as possible by minimizing costs; to design a machine which best serves those goals. The latter is what's at stake here -- it doesn't take a genius to figure out which direction Intel will go in if Intel's goals (making a profit) clash with the purpose of the project.
Finally, I'm amused by the cynicism and ad hominem attacks against Negroponte. A project which he obviously feels strongly about (and believes will do a lot of good) is jeopardized by people who're in it to make a buck. If he believed that Intel's involvement would better serve the goals of OLPC, his reaction may have been entirely different. He does not, and he has every reason not to. He's snappy about it, and so am I -- and I'm not even personally involved in the project.