Negroponte, OLPC, AAAS, obese electronics

[Ben Scott]

On Feb 19, 2008 2:43 PM, Neil Joseph Schelly <neil at jenandneil.com> wrote:
> These arguments never go anywhere.

  It takes two to tango.  ;-)  If you don't like the lame, quibbling
arguments, don't participate in them.  Nobody's making you hit
"Reply".  Not even Microsoft.  ;-)

> They don't make it more complex, expensive, or any of that.

  They do indeed make it more complex.  How much varies from phone to
phone.  To spin it with PHB buzzwords, TCO keeps increasing, even
though purchase price remains the same.  A frequent complaint I hear
from the 30 or so mobile phone users at work is that their new phone
is over-complicated.  They'd rather a simpler device that worked
better.  But those don't sell as well to the general population.
Marketing works.  I suppose you could say people deserve what they
get, but it's annoying for those of us who can see beyond the sales
display.

  There's actually enough of a problem with this that there is at
least one manufacturer actively targeting people with poor vision and
low tech savvy.  http://www.jitterbug.com/  But it's only one carrier,
I think, and it remains to be seen if they succeed.

  And say a small but not tiny company (like my employer) wants to
standardize on one model of phone.  With constant model churn and
forced contract adoption, that can't be done economically.  This is
especially annoying when the carriers are providing "incentives" --
"free" phones -- designed to sell more services.  Our rates stay high
because we're subsidizing the feature-mongers with their "free"
phones.

  One could say this is just a very small minority market, and maybe
it is, but it's hard to find market research to support that when
there's no choice in the market.

  One could argue that this is a problem due to limited market
competition, and not a technology problem per se.  I suspect that is
exactly right.  But then, look at Microsoft...

> So while you don't necessarily want a phone with those features,
> you also don't specifically want to be rid of those features.

  I actually specifically do want to be rid of the camera.  (Cameras
are not allowed in certain areas I work in.  Some of those areas do
permit cell phones.  Don't ask me why; I don't make the rules.)

> If you have a perfectly good phone, but buy a new one, it's because you want
> the new features.

  I have an old, worn-out phone (without a camera) that needs to be
replaced because it's old and worn-out.  We're also contemplating
switching carriers.  When either happens, I'll have to join the ranks
of people leaving their phone+cameras in the basket.

> Microsoft's planned obsolescence is real ...

  Cell phone planned obsolescence is real, too, just not as nasty or
overt.  Certainly Microsoft's behavior is more egregious.

-- Ben