marketing

Werner Almesberger werner at almesberger.net
Sat Dec 8 09:31:50 EST 2012


Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross wrote:
> I guess the market would be those that can't afford
> ?100 pocket computer phone.

There's one of the problems with the cartridges: you still need
the same Ben. The hardware of a Ben that is constrained to only
run tetris costs exactly the same amount as that of a Ben that
has hundreds of sophisticated applications installed.

So one of the key cost benefits of single-function devices is
already lost.

Of course, assuming a revenue stream from cartridges, one could
sell Bens at a loss and cross-finance via the cartridges. The
problem with that is that those Bens would still be able to do
a lot more and also people who don't care about the cartridges
would buy Bens. And the cheaper you sell the Ben, the more
attractive it gets for "unintended" uses.

You could counter that by adding some "trusted computing" that
only lets it run cartridges, but such a move would make it
highly unpopular in the Free Culture.

Another way would be to sell Ben and cartridges as a bundle,
but then you may as well just preinstall all the goodies, or
make them available for download, and dispense with the
cartridges.

So I don't quite see how this concept that fit in the late
1970es to early 1980es could be adapted to fit in today's
world, with radically different technology (ubiquitous global
networking, cheap large storage) and also with different
cultural expectations (Free vs. corporate control).

- Werner




More information about the discussion mailing list


interactive