5 ms·

The QWERTY myth (1999)

• bediger4000 11y ago
  This is just a lame re-hash of Leibowitz and Margolis, "The Fable of the Keys". Sometime in the 90s, I printed out a copy of "The Fable of the Keys" from CU Denver's library microfiche. I was very disappointed. The paper has no original research at all, it's just ragging on other's research that Leibowitz and Margolis don't like. The whole paper reads like they started with the conclusion ("markets don't fail" maybe, or "path dependence doesn't exist") and tried to assassinate various studies that showed the opposite of their conclusion. Don't get me wrong, it's very possible that the Dvorak keyboard isn't very good, or it's worse than QWERTY. Leibowitz and Margolis just didn't show either conclusion. I'm really surprised that this paper has gotten as much citation as it has.
• ggreer 11y ago
  "There is no market failure." cuts both ways. If QWERTY dominates Dvorak, why does Dvorak continue to exist? It seems to me that any marginalized standard must have at least some advantage, otherwise it would go extinct.
  • kazinator 11y ago
    By that reasoning, magnetic bracelets must have some advantage.