I've taken much more than intro to economics, here's my reply to your assertions:
1. Your decreased supply to higher prices. Yes, it usually will; but the *dominating effect* (to use the econ term) will always be the decreased demand, thus prices will always be lower (but maybe not as low as you predect initially).
leae note that I say "only" not to say there is only one effect, but to counter something said in a previous comment.
2. The difference between competition and competing technology is a matter of definition. Your own example is my own argument: Competition (any type, replacement goods in the case of DVD/VHS) lowers prices. You just strengthen my argument here.
Re-read the comment I was replying to, I think you'll find that you agree with my reply.
You do have a valid point; if mor than one company could distribute a movie, prices would certainly be much lower. But your argument says that DVDs are cheaper to produce, but VHS costs 1/2 to 1/3 the price of a DVD movie. Why?
Because consumer preference and performance, mostly.
Anyways, keep in mind that a company can and does compete with itself; a consumer doesn't know that it's the same company making a DVd and a VHS, they simple choose one or the other, and price is a major factor. If a DVD were to cost say, $200 and the VHS only $10, clearly DVd sales would plummet.
That is an extreme example to make a point; VHS and DVDs do actually compete with each other. Competition lowers prices.
This is why they want to drop the VHS format, to raise prices (and profit)
Erm...
"Competition goes down due to decreased demand."?
I hope you've never taken a course in economics. Decreased demand only means one thing: Lower prices. Competition might go up or down, depending on the business model and market. Right now, for instance, competition is *incredibly* fierce in the PC market precisely because demand is so low.
Your point is also invalid. 8-track tapes are a 20 year-old, obsolete technology. How many people own an 8-track player?
My point is simple: Without competing technologies, prices go up. It's a simple economic principal.
Does anyone remember the days when a VHS movie cost $65+?
I love DVDs, this is the perfect example of how competition lowers prices. However, if VHS becomes rare, competition will go down and prices, up. I hope that they lose money o nthis and decide to stock VHS again, soon.
I never liked CC anyways, salespeople on commission are so annoying!
Hmm, let me simplify further, so maybe you'll have a chance to understand...
AOL bought Netscape
Netscape is being developed by AOL
Mozilla/Netscape are two very alive products in the market today.
Further, IBM is making a very large OSS push to help their business. Considering that busines cycles are measured in years, not months, no one (not even you, despite how smart you think you are) can make any judgement about the importance or success for OSS in IBM.
Your arguments are, as they probaly always are, misunderstood, unfounded and ignorant.
I suppose that putting pressure on companies to not copy protect CDs is a Very Good thing. If the warning label is actually a warning label (no truth-ish "This CD comes equipped with Super Happy Fun Consumer Protection Technology!!!"), then sles will naturally be lower, and hopefully they'll stop.
The pessimist in me though, says this is only a delay tactic. LEt's hope it's not economically feasible for them to make this a new standard.
I think I'll just throw this right back in your face: Nobody expects you to be objective around Slashdot, but it would be wise to at least consider what you are saying before doing so.
Your opinions smack of a high school student who has a bone to pick with corporate america. Your opinions are unfounded and easily disproven; I've alreadydone this. No amonut of handwaving and strawman arguments can make your wrong opinion right; no one in their right mind would say that IBM is dying, nor that any AOL/Time Warner company is "dead and dying." And just to explain so that you can understand, a company is an idea, not some living creature, they evolve and change over time, like Netscape has.
So, in conclusion, I'd say you need to spend some time in some business classes (I'm sure you can take some when you get to college), and then maybe you'll understand my point.
Hmm, IBM is still the largest computer company, Netscape is a part of AOL/Time Watrner, Transmeta is still making CPUs and signing deals for portable devices...
Just what is your definition of "dead or dying"? What makes a compnay successful?
Yea, it's a very cumulative effect, though- if MS maintains, say, 1,000,000 shelf units, they're out $200,000,000. If over the course of 1 year they sell $5,000,000, verses selling none, you can see where they lose money.
Of course, the less boxes sold, the less incentive for game developers to make games, and the worse it makes MS look. I'm not going to buy one, just pointing out a potentially weak argument;)
No, you're wrong. That's seriously, seriously flawed logic.
If I don't buy an X-box and it stays "on the shelf" MS loses $300.
If I buy an X-box, MS replaces that X-box with another one (they keep stock levels constant). Hence, MS loses $100 from the one sold to me, plus $300 for the new one produced. Total = $400.
If MS had a fixed number of Xboxes, then yes, not buying one would hurt. But they don't, so by *not* buying an Xbox, you're actually helping microsoft.
Maybe at $200, having a set-top Divx player would be worth it to some technophiles out there. And of course, every XBox sold is another $100 or so loss for Microsoft:)
Personally, I'd rather spend $200 on a nice DVD player, or a cheap DVD/surround home theatre system.
Proprietary = Sure, this is capitalism. Any system where the government doesn't interfere too much is capitalism (ie, making a profit). (I know, it's a simplification).
BSD = Very little protection for original authors, ie a business can "steal" your code and profit from your work, without having to pay you. This might be good for business, but bad for individuals. Again, this is capitalism.
GPL = You can use my code, but you if you release software, you have to release your source code, too. You're free to charge for the code if you want. This isn't communist at all, it's just a different business model.
The argument isn't neccesarily that it is pro-business, but that it isn't anti-business. There's nothing in the GPL that says you can't profit from a GPL application (ask Redhat!), it just makes sure that certain protections are in place.
GP
It seems to me that a group like UnitedLinux could bring a lot of commercial development to the Linux platform. Are there any efforts to bring companies who have so far neglected developing for Linux due to support costs, like most hardware venders, into UnitedLinux?
It seems like such a chore to write drivers that work on all distros since they all use different kernels. It seems to me that businesses only develop for windows because they are guaranteed that their drivers will work on all windows machines for X (4,5,6) years without any mroe work. Having experience writing Linux device drivers, do you think that a cross-distribution effort to standardize on kernel versions and guarantee major hardware manufacturers this compatibility would promote driver development in Linux?
Takes until May 2002 to support larger than 10gig hard drives, sorry.
Quote: 28 May 2002
We are pleased to announce version 1.3 of the GNU distribution of the Mach kernel, featuring advanced boot script support, support for large disks (>= 10GB) and an improved console.
I do know what you mean, of course, that upgrading one thing means upgrading a bunch. Personally I think they've done a pretty good job providing previous-generation support in motherboards (there were a ton of boards out there that supported both DDR and SDRAM, there were boards that supported SDRAM and EDO, EDO and FPM, etc). CPUs is another matter, of course, but you can use same board for anything from a duron 600MHz to a 1.8GHz Athlon MP. What *I* want to know is why do they still have two serial ports on most computers? I haven't used one in years.
Since it keeps all that backwards compatibility.
On a serious note, keeping backwards compatibility both stifles development and raises cost. I don't complain that new computers are cheaper and faster than they ever have been.
Ok, first of all you clearly haven't worked for any business, small, medium or large. If you have, then it won't be in business very long.
Second, companies *should be* and *are* responsible for security on their computer systems. By your logic, you would also claim that a company shouldn't have to buy locks, cameras or security personal for their buildings, because how would they have known that people exist that can break into a building. Your reasoning is flawed and feeble.
A business is an educated entity. And for your information, the business world, from small to multinational, is going to continue to use the internet in more and more ways for their business. You may not buy it, but that's your mistake.
The other comment is right... If you buy one, MS loses $200, but then they produce one more. Net loss of all X-box purchases goes up $200. Learn economics;)
I seriously doubt that open source is the solution to this problem. Honestly, there are glitches in OS projects, too, that get by review. I don't like this spin put on this story... OS is *not* the holy grail of software development!
Oh well, time to burn some karma for a neede rant;)
I don't know if you realize this, but MS loses at least $200 per unit that they sell. So, porting say, Linux to it and use it as a desktop, you just cost MS $200. Bad troll!
I'm not supproting my argument because you're not supporting yours; never once did you use any specific claims, ie sections of code, philosophy, or even the protol used for these technologies.
Anyways you're dead set that just because they use a MS protocol it doesn't deserve praise, and this is where I disagree. Again I say, it's completely innovative because they built it themselves, and made it cross platform; something that has never been done before.
What do they do that's fundamentally different? Almost everthing. I'm not going to list any because in your argument, you don't go into detail about how say, Beowulf is different from other clusters that have been around years. Any search for Beowulf technology on say, google will reveal hundreds of new features and methodologies employed.
In short, your approach, to dismiss these projects as simply derivative, is antagonistic, pesimistic, and ignorant. You're obviously not a computer scientist.
Slashdot Mirror
I've taken much more than intro to economics, here's my reply to your assertions:
1. Your decreased supply to higher prices. Yes, it usually will; but the *dominating effect* (to use the econ term) will always be the decreased demand, thus prices will always be lower (but maybe not as low as you predect initially).
leae note that I say "only" not to say there is only one effect, but to counter something said in a previous comment.
2. The difference between competition and competing technology is a matter of definition. Your own example is my own argument: Competition (any type, replacement goods in the case of DVD/VHS) lowers prices. You just strengthen my argument here.
Re-read the comment I was replying to, I think you'll find that you agree with my reply.
You do have a valid point; if mor than one company could distribute a movie, prices would certainly be much lower. But your argument says that DVDs are cheaper to produce, but VHS costs 1/2 to 1/3 the price of a DVD movie. Why?
Because consumer preference and performance, mostly.
Anyways, keep in mind that a company can and does compete with itself; a consumer doesn't know that it's the same company making a DVd and a VHS, they simple choose one or the other, and price is a major factor. If a DVD were to cost say, $200 and the VHS only $10, clearly DVd sales would plummet.
That is an extreme example to make a point; VHS and DVDs do actually compete with each other. Competition lowers prices.
This is why they want to drop the VHS format, to raise prices (and profit)
Erm...
"Competition goes down due to decreased demand."?
I hope you've never taken a course in economics. Decreased demand only means one thing: Lower prices. Competition might go up or down, depending on the business model and market. Right now, for instance, competition is *incredibly* fierce in the PC market precisely because demand is so low.
Your point is also invalid. 8-track tapes are a 20 year-old, obsolete technology. How many people own an 8-track player?
My point is simple: Without competing technologies, prices go up. It's a simple economic principal.
Does anyone remember the days when a VHS movie cost $65+?
I love DVDs, this is the perfect example of how competition lowers prices. However, if VHS becomes rare, competition will go down and prices, up. I hope that they lose money o nthis and decide to stock VHS again, soon.
I never liked CC anyways, salespeople on commission are so annoying!
Hmm, let me simplify further, so maybe you'll have a chance to understand...
AOL bought Netscape
Netscape is being developed by AOL
Mozilla/Netscape are two very alive products in the market today.
Further, IBM is making a very large OSS push to help their business. Considering that busines cycles are measured in years, not months, no one (not even you, despite how smart you think you are) can make any judgement about the importance or success for OSS in IBM.
Your arguments are, as they probaly always are, misunderstood, unfounded and ignorant.
I suppose that putting pressure on companies to not copy protect CDs is a Very Good thing. If the warning label is actually a warning label (no truth-ish "This CD comes equipped with Super Happy Fun Consumer Protection Technology!!!"), then sles will naturally be lower, and hopefully they'll stop.
The pessimist in me though, says this is only a delay tactic. LEt's hope it's not economically feasible for them to make this a new standard.
I think I'll just throw this right back in your face:
Nobody expects you to be objective around Slashdot, but it would be wise to at least consider what you are saying before doing so.
Your opinions smack of a high school student who has a bone to pick with corporate america. Your opinions are unfounded and easily disproven; I've alreadydone this. No amonut of handwaving and strawman arguments can make your wrong opinion right; no one in their right mind would say that IBM is dying, nor that any AOL/Time Warner company is "dead and dying." And just to explain so that you can understand, a company is an idea, not some living creature, they evolve and change over time, like Netscape has.
So, in conclusion, I'd say you need to spend some time in some business classes (I'm sure you can take some when you get to college), and then maybe you'll understand my point.
Hmm, IBM is still the largest computer company, Netscape is a part of AOL/Time Watrner, Transmeta is still making CPUs and signing deals for portable devices...
Just what is your definition of "dead or dying"? What makes a compnay successful?
Yea, it's a very cumulative effect, though- if MS maintains, say, 1,000,000 shelf units, they're out $200,000,000. If over the course of 1 year they sell $5,000,000, verses selling none, you can see where they lose money.
;)
Of course, the less boxes sold, the less incentive for game developers to make games, and the worse it makes MS look. I'm not going to buy one, just pointing out a potentially weak argument
No, you're wrong. That's seriously, seriously flawed logic.
If I don't buy an X-box and it stays "on the shelf" MS loses $300.
If I buy an X-box, MS replaces that X-box with another one (they keep stock levels constant). Hence, MS loses $100 from the one sold to me, plus $300 for the new one produced. Total = $400.
If MS had a fixed number of Xboxes, then yes, not buying one would hurt. But they don't, so by *not* buying an Xbox, you're actually helping microsoft.
Maybe at $200, having a set-top Divx player would be worth it to some technophiles out there. And of course, every XBox sold is another $100 or so loss for Microsoft :)
Personally, I'd rather spend $200 on a nice DVD player, or a cheap DVD/surround home theatre system.
You're a little off, here:
Proprietary = Sure, this is capitalism. Any system where the government doesn't interfere too much is capitalism (ie, making a profit). (I know, it's a simplification). BSD = Very little protection for original authors, ie a business can "steal" your code and profit from your work, without having to pay you. This might be good for business, but bad for individuals.
Again, this is capitalism.
GPL = You can use my code, but you if you release software, you have to release your source code, too. You're free to charge for the code if you want. This isn't communist at all, it's just a different business model.
The argument isn't neccesarily that it is pro-business, but that it isn't anti-business. There's nothing in the GPL that says you can't profit from a GPL application (ask Redhat!), it just makes sure that certain protections are in place.
GP
It seems to me that a group like UnitedLinux could bring a lot of commercial development to the Linux platform. Are there any efforts to bring companies who have so far neglected developing for Linux due to support costs, like most hardware venders, into UnitedLinux?
It seems like such a chore to write drivers that work on all distros since they all use different kernels. It seems to me that businesses only develop for windows because they are guaranteed that their drivers will work on all windows machines for X (4,5,6) years without any mroe work. Having experience writing Linux device drivers, do you think that a cross-distribution effort to standardize on kernel versions and guarantee major hardware manufacturers this compatibility would promote driver development in Linux?
Takes until May 2002 to support larger than 10gig hard drives, sorry.
Quote:
28 May 2002
We are pleased to announce version 1.3 of the GNU distribution of the Mach kernel, featuring advanced boot script support, support for large disks (>= 10GB) and an improved console.
I do know what you mean, of course, that upgrading one thing means upgrading a bunch. Personally I think they've done a pretty good job providing previous-generation support in motherboards (there were a ton of boards out there that supported both DDR and SDRAM, there were boards that supported SDRAM and EDO, EDO and FPM, etc). CPUs is another matter, of course, but you can use same board for anything from a duron 600MHz to a 1.8GHz Athlon MP. What *I* want to know is why do they still have two serial ports on most computers? I haven't used one in years.
Since it keeps all that backwards compatibility.
On a serious note, keeping backwards compatibility both stifles development and raises cost. I don't complain that new computers are cheaper and faster than they ever have been.
Try Opera... I was very skeptical, but it's *amazingly* low-weight, and I've barely had any compatibility issues with it.
Ok, first of all you clearly haven't worked for any business, small, medium or large. If you have, then it won't be in business very long.
Second, companies *should be* and *are* responsible for security on their computer systems. By your logic, you would also claim that a company shouldn't have to buy locks, cameras or security personal for their buildings, because how would they have known that people exist that can break into a building. Your reasoning is flawed and feeble.
A business is an educated entity. And for your information, the business world, from small to multinational, is going to continue to use the internet in more and more ways for their business. You may not buy it, but that's your mistake.
The other comment is right... If you buy one, MS loses $200, but then they produce one more. Net loss of all X-box purchases goes up $200. Learn economics ;)
You and the other comments are all wrong, it's a lack of understanding economics. I'll reply to you since you're not an AC.
If MS produces 1,000 X-boxes at a loss of $400, they lose $4mil if no one buys any.
If MS produces 10,000 X-boxes at a loss of $200 each (every one was purchased), they lose $20mil.
So, which way do they lose more money?
I seriously doubt that open source is the solution to this problem. Honestly, there are glitches in OS projects, too, that get by review. I don't like this spin put on this story... OS is *not* the holy grail of software development!
;)
Oh well, time to burn some karma for a neede rant
I don't know if you realize this, but MS loses at least $200 per unit that they sell. So, porting say, Linux to it and use it as a desktop, you just cost MS $200. Bad troll!
I'm not supproting my argument because you're not supporting yours; never once did you use any specific claims, ie sections of code, philosophy, or even the protol used for these technologies.
Anyways you're dead set that just because they use a MS protocol it doesn't deserve praise, and this is where I disagree. Again I say, it's completely innovative because they built it themselves, and made it cross platform; something that has never been done before.
What do they do that's fundamentally different? Almost everthing. I'm not going to list any because in your argument, you don't go into detail about how say, Beowulf is different from other clusters that have been around years. Any search for Beowulf technology on say, google will reveal hundreds of new features and methodologies employed.
In short, your approach, to dismiss these projects as simply derivative, is antagonistic, pesimistic, and ignorant. You're obviously not a computer scientist.