Many are looking at the pricing plans from the wrong perspective. AT&T's goal isn't to charge per bandwidth. They want to split the users into groups based on their intended usage, then charge the perceived value to each group.
$5 for 10 MB targets people with dumb phones who just need simple information like sport scores
$15 for 100 MB is for smart phone users who use it mostly for email
$25 for 500 MB is for smart phone users who casually surf the web
If you want to use more data, AT&T prefers you to get on a post paid plan
You can still argue that the prices are too high, but there is some reasoning to AT&T's pricing model.
If the ads are unobtrusive and artistically done, I don't think it will bother a lot of people. Unlike most other forms of advertising, I don't really mind the ads in magazines. They don't get in the way of reading, are higher quality and some are actually enjoyable to look at.
There is a difference of a nice picture of nice scenery and a polar bear drinking a coke with a logo in the corner compared to big block letters that say DRINK COKE.
If you think about it, the Amazon logo on the device is its own form of advertising. People would put pictures of cars on their PC's desktop, which is also a form of advertising. As a kid, I would cut some advertisements out of a magazine and hang it on my wall.
If done unobtrusively and tastefully, I don't think most people will be turned off that much. I personally would pay the $25 premium for an ad free versions, but there will still be a significant segment of the population who wouldn't mind the ad supported version.
Valve is still widely successful despite having its potential problems.
Cloud providers don't have an interest in banning people because it will costs them lots of business. Large corporations put their trust into the cloud and any sign that they could lose or lock out the data, will cause them to run someone where else.
Valve can get away with it because it mainly punishes cheaters, which is in the interest of Valve and the majority of their users. If they start doing arbitrary bans, then it will cause people to flee.
There is risk of losing your physical content too and have to pay if you want to receive it again. If you are good at making backups and can host your own content, then cloud service is probably is a waste.
Others will find the convenience of paying for your content once and easily accessing it from anywhere to be worth the price of a cloud service.
Battery power cars face the same problems that modern rockets do. The weight of the batteries makes it impractical to make a long distance electric car. When you add more batteries, it increases the weight of the car which makes it less efficient.
What made modern electric cars somewhat practical is chemistry that allowed batteries to have higher energy densities, which is new modern technology.
Unless they discover a new chemical reaction that is able to produce more energy per unit of mass, then there is not going to be significant advances in what conventional rockets can do. It is just simple physics.
Are general users visiting my website more likely to click FBAds than AdSense? Will they be textual and thus fit into my content better or will we be looking at a lot of images/Flash?
This is just speculation, but Facebook's ads would most likely be base the off the user's profile information.
Facebook has a competitive advantage over Google when it comes to targeting advertising based on the demographic of the users. Google's algorithm's give it a competitive advantage when it comes to targeting ads based on the content of websites.
Which method works best for generating the most revenue is still up to debate.
This article is dead on. There hasn't been major progress in making rockets more efficient since the 1960's because the basics of chemistry and physics.
If we spend hundreds of billions of dollars, we might be able to send a select few men to Mars, but it would be like the lunar landings in the past. It will be a one time event then people will realize that it is a waste of money and resources to do it again.
The current technology won't work to make space travel apart of our daily lives. It won't support advances like suborbital commercial airplanes, space tourism, colonization, or mining the Moon and comets.
There has to be major advances in technology to make space travel that are order of magnitudes more efficient before any of these dreams becomes a reality. These technologies are mostly theoretical and probably won't be available during our lifetimes. Until then, we will just continue to spend billions to send a select few into space like we have been doing since the 60's.
The movie and record industries do not follow a perfectly competitive market model.
Firms have a fixed costs associated with producing music of movies. If they can't generate enough revenue to offset the costs, they would not produce anything to begin with regardless of the marginal costs.
You can argue that they record and movie industries limit are losing the innovation in terms of the quality of their work, but it is a stretch to say that it is a huge threat to technology innovation. Although the MPAA/RIAA have stepped out of bounds many times, they mostly put limits on is the content that they create, which is just entertainment.
What really limits technological innovation is all the frivolous software and hardware patents that companies build up. They are directly putting limits on ideas and technology that will be the foundation of further innovation.
Even in the worst case that someone has 700 friends, they pay is $70, which is significant, but its not worth going to court over. Maybe if it was a legitimate app it would be different, but even then you have to agree to the permissions to send out the text messages when installing the app.
There are many legitimate companies that get away from far worst. You are hearing about parents getting $99 charges because they added expensive in app purchases on a kids game.
I actually think the shaming could be far worst than the SMS charges. If your boss gets a text message and you lose a job or promotion over it, it would have far greater economic consequences.
Freeloaders is the perfect word to describe the pirates.
Freeloading is completely different than stealing. Freeloading is like not paying for a vaccine because everyone else is vaccinated for the disease. You get the benefits from the vaccine while others are paying for the costs.
Pirates rely on the fact that there are enough people who are willing to pay to support the developers, or else that application would have never been created. You as an individual won't cause any harm, but if everyone pirated, then many of the software and movies we enjoy wouldn't exists.
Slashdot Mirror
Many are looking at the pricing plans from the wrong perspective. AT&T's goal isn't to charge per bandwidth. They want to split the users into groups based on their intended usage, then charge the perceived value to each group.
$5 for 10 MB targets people with dumb phones who just need simple information like sport scores
$15 for 100 MB is for smart phone users who use it mostly for email
$25 for 500 MB is for smart phone users who casually surf the web
If you want to use more data, AT&T prefers you to get on a post paid plan
You can still argue that the prices are too high, but there is some reasoning to AT&T's pricing model.
If the ads are unobtrusive and artistically done, I don't think it will bother a lot of people. Unlike most other forms of advertising, I don't really mind the ads in magazines. They don't get in the way of reading, are higher quality and some are actually enjoyable to look at.
There is a difference of a nice picture of nice scenery and a polar bear drinking a coke with a logo in the corner compared to big block letters that say DRINK COKE.
If you think about it, the Amazon logo on the device is its own form of advertising. People would put pictures of cars on their PC's desktop, which is also a form of advertising. As a kid, I would cut some advertisements out of a magazine and hang it on my wall.
If done unobtrusively and tastefully, I don't think most people will be turned off that much. I personally would pay the $25 premium for an ad free versions, but there will still be a significant segment of the population who wouldn't mind the ad supported version.
Valve is still widely successful despite having its potential problems.
Cloud providers don't have an interest in banning people because it will costs them lots of business. Large corporations put their trust into the cloud and any sign that they could lose or lock out the data, will cause them to run someone where else.
Valve can get away with it because it mainly punishes cheaters, which is in the interest of Valve and the majority of their users. If they start doing arbitrary bans, then it will cause people to flee .
There is risk of losing your physical content too and have to pay if you want to receive it again. If you are good at making backups and can host your own content, then cloud service is probably is a waste.
Others will find the convenience of paying for your content once and easily accessing it from anywhere to be worth the price of a cloud service.
Battery power cars face the same problems that modern rockets do. The weight of the batteries makes it impractical to make a long distance electric car. When you add more batteries, it increases the weight of the car which makes it less efficient.
What made modern electric cars somewhat practical is chemistry that allowed batteries to have higher energy densities, which is new modern technology.
Unless they discover a new chemical reaction that is able to produce more energy per unit of mass, then there is not going to be significant advances in what conventional rockets can do. It is just simple physics.
Are general users visiting my website more likely to click FBAds than AdSense? Will they be textual and thus fit into my content better or will we be looking at a lot of images/Flash?
This is just speculation, but Facebook's ads would most likely be base the off the user's profile information.
Facebook has a competitive advantage over Google when it comes to targeting advertising based on the demographic of the users. Google's algorithm's give it a competitive advantage when it comes to targeting ads based on the content of websites.
Which method works best for generating the most revenue is still up to debate.
This article is dead on. There hasn't been major progress in making rockets more efficient since the 1960's because the basics of chemistry and physics.
If we spend hundreds of billions of dollars, we might be able to send a select few men to Mars, but it would be like the lunar landings in the past. It will be a one time event then people will realize that it is a waste of money and resources to do it again.
The current technology won't work to make space travel apart of our daily lives. It won't support advances like suborbital commercial airplanes, space tourism, colonization, or mining the Moon and comets.
There has to be major advances in technology to make space travel that are order of magnitudes more efficient before any of these dreams becomes a reality. These technologies are mostly theoretical and probably won't be available during our lifetimes. Until then, we will just continue to spend billions to send a select few into space like we have been doing since the 60's.
Leet is fine, but use the actual English spelling
L33t would be like using Igpay Atinlay for the entry of Pig Latin
The movie and record industries do not follow a perfectly competitive market model.
Firms have a fixed costs associated with producing music of movies. If they can't generate enough revenue to offset the costs, they would not produce anything to begin with regardless of the marginal costs.
You can argue that they record and movie industries limit are losing the innovation in terms of the quality of their work, but it is a stretch to say that it is a huge threat to technology innovation. Although the MPAA/RIAA have stepped out of bounds many times, they mostly put limits on is the content that they create, which is just entertainment.
What really limits technological innovation is all the frivolous software and hardware patents that companies build up. They are directly putting limits on ideas and technology that will be the foundation of further innovation.
Most of the people who care about this are those that pirate apps, so it isn't a big loss.
Compared to DRM, this anti-piracy measure doesn't punish legitimate users so it doesn't affect them.
Even in the worst case that someone has 700 friends, they pay is $70, which is significant, but its not worth going to court over. Maybe if it was a legitimate app it would be different, but even then you have to agree to the permissions to send out the text messages when installing the app.
There are many legitimate companies that get away from far worst. You are hearing about parents getting $99 charges because they added expensive in app purchases on a kids game.
I actually think the shaming could be far worst than the SMS charges. If your boss gets a text message and you lose a job or promotion over it, it would have far greater economic consequences.
Freeloaders is the perfect word to describe the pirates.
Freeloading is completely different than stealing. Freeloading is like not paying for a vaccine because everyone else is vaccinated for the disease. You get the benefits from the vaccine while others are paying for the costs.
Pirates rely on the fact that there are enough people who are willing to pay to support the developers, or else that application would have never been created. You as an individual won't cause any harm, but if everyone pirated, then many of the software and movies we enjoy wouldn't exists.