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Oft-quoted: "Android May Be the Greatest Legal Destruction of Wealth in History" It's actually a transfer of wealth from the coffers of Apple, RIM and MS to mo

Oft-quoted: "Android May Be the Greatest Legal Destruction of Wealth in History" It's actually a transfer of wealth from the coffers of Apple, RIM and MS to mostly developing-nation consumers who can now afford the same advanced phones as people in developed countries. The trio is doing everything in their power to kill Android, but I do hope it survives.

napierzaza 15y ago
Yes, you're right. All of this is going to the third world. What? Don't start believing that Android is CHARITABLE. It's a different business model. And this patent case is just a bunch of huge companies suing each-other. None of these companies is any more charitable than the other really. Has Google not done enough gray things for you to realize this yet?
- treeface 15y ago
  Android, as an operating system created by Android, Inc. and incubated and promoted by Google, is not "charitable" per se, but that's not the point that martythemaniak is making. As a free, open-source piece of software, it effectively acts as a lubricant in the consumer electronics market. By eliminating the manufacturer's cost of building a device's operating system, Google have made it more affordable for both device manufacturers and consumers to effect smart mobile device transactions. So while it may not be strictly financially "charitable" for Google to do this, if we account for the non-financial value of these transactions, I think it's fair to say that an enormous amount of wealth has been created above and beyond what would otherwise have happened in a market that was only dominated by devices running non-free software, especially in countries that have populations that are generally too poor to afford the iPhone.
  - napierzaza 15y ago
    The manufactures that put Android on their devices are not mom and pop electronics firms. So the implication that this is somehow shifting money to poorer people is kind of ridiculous. Unless you mean the top 1% richest people in those countries. Because I don't think the manufacturers will go to their labourers and pay them any more money just because some hardware was designed in house (hardware design doesn't employ many people either). It's not Tom's shoes. In fact I find it hard to believe that even Tom's shoes are Tom's shoes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      > The manufactures that put Android on their devices are not mom and pop electronics firms And this has no effect on treeface's reasoning > the implication that this is somehow shifting money to poorer people is kind of ridiculous. Again, there is no implication money is shifting hands. What treeface said is that a massive amount of value is being generated by lowering the cost of building smartphones, thus reducing prices and allowing more people to use them and (he/she didn't say that) by offering a convenient standard software writers can write against, creating a market larger and less fragmented than any other player had managed to create.
      - napierzaza 15y ago
        Are consumers in third world countries really saving tons of money on android? Anyone with subsistence living won't buy a smart phone. You're inevitably implying that you're saving the money of someone middle class somewhere. Hardly as noble as you might have thought originally. These companies are much more ethically inert than you think. It's just a new sort of marketing that uses the lifestyles of the CEO's or the employees as a selling point. The change in economics, or straight out charitable donations as a selling point. Android is shifting things for certain, but it's not one laptop per child.
        rbanffy 15y ago
        There is a lot of middle-class people in the third world. Also, don't forget every market benefits from cheaper smarter phones and a software stack everyone can contribute to and benefit from is a huge gain in efficiency.
        gautamc 15y ago
        Here in India, I was able to get an Android smart phone for half the price of an iPhone. I can also build Android apps on my Debian Linux machine without incurring any additional costs. The fact that the devices cost lesser(even before the phone company subsidizes it) and yet have GPS and an accelerometer enables me to at least attempt certain kinds of applications that target the mass market here in India. Also, the ability to read the source code allows me to learn about a smartphone operating system in the same way I got know about a PC operating system by reading Linux's source code. I would never want Android to be like OLPC. Android is more like a free market. OLPC was charity. Apple has every right to protect its intellectual property. I think it is equally important for Americans to debate about, and review, the American patent system (where required). Overall, if HTC can pay royalties to MS, then I guess they can do the same with Apple.
- contextfree 15y ago
  Motivation and effect are different things. Whenever (simplification, all else being equal, yadda yadda) someone undercuts market incumbents with a cheaper equivalent product, it has the effect of leaving consumers with more wealth, whether or not that's the producer's motivation.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - napierzaza 15y ago
    It's nice that more people can afford a shiny thing now. But the iPhone has been pretty much market price for a long time now. I just don't see the touting that "poorer" people can afford a smart phone as anything other than marketing. Henry Ford brought the price of a car down to a price that people can afford. The design to do so was to sell more cars. That's what creating a market for commoditized and mass marketed products does. But the quote implies that there is some kind of huge shift of either money or power from a large company to the consumer (really poor consumers too!). It's not, it's a shift of a market from one paradigm (and a few companies) towards Google's paradigm where they make money off the back end.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I've seen more blogs recently use that quote in a negative way, even though it's taken out of context, and the original author of that quote meant it as an overall positive thing (for the world).
- jrockway 15y ago
  Indeed. A lot of people on the Internet have what I call "Joe the Plumber" syndrome; they imagine themselves as though they are better off than they are, and then get upset when something helps the little guy. In this case, people are upset that there is no money in developing your own phone OS, because you can't compete with Free. But in reality, most of these people don't make phone operating systems, but they do buy phones. So Android ends up being great for them: cheaper fun electronic toys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber
  - yblokhin 15y ago
    "Joe the Plumber" syndrome is often a strong indicator of that person taking Ayn Rand way too seriously.
  - walexander 15y ago
    I'm not sure this debate is likely to go anywhere, but what exactly is wrong with people thinking they are better off than they are, or aspiring to be? If people don't want help, why force it upon them? Disclaimer: I love Android and 100% of my slates are running it. I love that it's free. Check my profile, it's all I do all day. I'm just calling out your "Joe the Plumber" reference.
    - yblokhin 15y ago
      It's wrong for people to think they are better off than they are because such thinking leads to decisions that will hurt Joes in the end. It's exactly Joes who shoot themselves in the foot by thinking that it's an each man for himself world.
alain94040 15y ago
Except I don't believe in a free lunch. Explain to me again, slowly. Apple is spending $1B in R&D to design the iPhone. Google is spending the same amount to design Android. Where is this money coming from and is it a sustainable investment from Google?
- brlewis 15y ago
  Android may be cheaper for Google than having to develop apps on a multitude of mobile OSes, the largest of which is controlled by a competitor.
- Daniel14 15y ago
  Android pays for itself, in lots of different ways, among them and by far most importantly: Being the default search provider on 550k additional phones/day. That's worth a billion $ to Google any day.
  - fabjan 15y ago
    Isn't Google the default search for iPhones as well?
    - robszumski 15y ago
      Yes, but they pay for that privilege. I haven't seen any public figures of how much that is, but it did get extended for a year or two recently.
      - napierzaza 15y ago
        There's money back and forth between these companies all the time. It's just behind closed doors for 90% of it. Patent suits are the equivalent of tabloid coverage of a public argument. It could very well be resolved behind closed doors like many other suits.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      And not the default on Verizon Android phones. I don't think it's just about search. I think sometimes Google does things Because They Can and then try to figure out how to make money later. Android's most realistic reason for existence, IMHO, is to ensure that Google users can take their data with them. If there was no Google phone, then the world would stick with Exchange, and GMail is not Exchange.
noonespecial 15y ago
The problem I have with this quote is that Android adds wealth to the world. Its a new open device platform where before there wasn't. What it does destroy (or more likely, just moves around) is money. There's a great big whopping difference between the two. What was certainly destroyed is power, ripped from the hands of a few and dissipated among many. This makes some people very angry.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  All you've done there is say "I have a different definition of wealth". From the perspective of most people discussing this wealth and money are interchangeable and it's not helpful to start substituting in new definitions (even if those definitions are justified).
  - noonespecial 15y ago
    Try this one: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html Drop down to "Money is not wealth". Paul did a much better job of explaining it (and why the distinction is important).
    - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
      As I say, I'm not saying that the definition is wrong, I'm saying that it's not the common usage and it's not what people repeating the quote mean, therefore if you disagree with the quote on that basis you're not disagree with what was actually said. When you say "it destroys [...] money" that's what they mean, you're just picking on their choice of words. As it goes I agree with you about it creating wealth (see my post elsewhere in this thread), I just don't think the right way to express it.
Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
Surely Android is a disruptor of wealth rather than a destroyer of it? There are things Android does for free (or very cheaply) which ask serious questions of competing products but what about the efficiencies that are created because more people have access to functionality which enhances their lives and businesses and the new markets it creates? Free turn by turn navigation software may destroy wealth for, say, Tom Tom and Garmin, but what about all the people who now have it but didn't before and who are now wasting less time as a result? Some (not necessarily all, but some) of that time will translate into additional wealth for them and those they deal with. Similar cases can be made for getting better information on the go (via e-mail and the web) and so on. Not to mention the app developers who can now make money where no market previously existed, the handset manufacturers who are selling more expensive handsets, the networks who are selling data plans, the smartphone accessory manufacturers. It would be hard to quantify what has been created against what has been destroyed, but I'd wager that it's far more accurate to describe what has happened as a disruption or a move than destruction.

napierzaza 15y ago

Yes, you're right. All of this is going to the third world. What? Don't start believing that Android is CHARITABLE. It's a different business model. And this patent case is just a bunch of huge companies suing each-other. None of these companies is any more charitable than the other really. Has Google not done enough gray things for you to realize this yet?

treeface 15y ago
Android, as an operating system created by Android, Inc. and incubated and promoted by Google, is not "charitable" per se, but that's not the point that martythemaniak is making. As a free, open-source piece of software, it effectively acts as a lubricant in the consumer electronics market. By eliminating the manufacturer's cost of building a device's operating system, Google have made it more affordable for both device manufacturers and consumers to effect smart mobile device transactions. So while it may not be strictly financially "charitable" for Google to do this, if we account for the non-financial value of these transactions, I think it's fair to say that an enormous amount of wealth has been created above and beyond what would otherwise have happened in a market that was only dominated by devices running non-free software, especially in countries that have populations that are generally too poor to afford the iPhone.
- napierzaza 15y ago
  The manufactures that put Android on their devices are not mom and pop electronics firms. So the implication that this is somehow shifting money to poorer people is kind of ridiculous. Unless you mean the top 1% richest people in those countries. Because I don't think the manufacturers will go to their labourers and pay them any more money just because some hardware was designed in house (hardware design doesn't employ many people either). It's not Tom's shoes. In fact I find it hard to believe that even Tom's shoes are Tom's shoes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    > The manufactures that put Android on their devices are not mom and pop electronics firms And this has no effect on treeface's reasoning > the implication that this is somehow shifting money to poorer people is kind of ridiculous. Again, there is no implication money is shifting hands. What treeface said is that a massive amount of value is being generated by lowering the cost of building smartphones, thus reducing prices and allowing more people to use them and (he/she didn't say that) by offering a convenient standard software writers can write against, creating a market larger and less fragmented than any other player had managed to create.
    - napierzaza 15y ago
      Are consumers in third world countries really saving tons of money on android? Anyone with subsistence living won't buy a smart phone. You're inevitably implying that you're saving the money of someone middle class somewhere. Hardly as noble as you might have thought originally. These companies are much more ethically inert than you think. It's just a new sort of marketing that uses the lifestyles of the CEO's or the employees as a selling point. The change in economics, or straight out charitable donations as a selling point. Android is shifting things for certain, but it's not one laptop per child.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        There is a lot of middle-class people in the third world. Also, don't forget every market benefits from cheaper smarter phones and a software stack everyone can contribute to and benefit from is a huge gain in efficiency.
      - gautamc 15y ago
        Here in India, I was able to get an Android smart phone for half the price of an iPhone. I can also build Android apps on my Debian Linux machine without incurring any additional costs. The fact that the devices cost lesser(even before the phone company subsidizes it) and yet have GPS and an accelerometer enables me to at least attempt certain kinds of applications that target the mass market here in India. Also, the ability to read the source code allows me to learn about a smartphone operating system in the same way I got know about a PC operating system by reading Linux's source code. I would never want Android to be like OLPC. Android is more like a free market. OLPC was charity. Apple has every right to protect its intellectual property. I think it is equally important for Americans to debate about, and review, the American patent system (where required). Overall, if HTC can pay royalties to MS, then I guess they can do the same with Apple.
contextfree 15y ago
Motivation and effect are different things. Whenever (simplification, all else being equal, yadda yadda) someone undercuts market incumbents with a cheaper equivalent product, it has the effect of leaving consumers with more wealth, whether or not that's the producer's motivation.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- napierzaza 15y ago
  It's nice that more people can afford a shiny thing now. But the iPhone has been pretty much market price for a long time now. I just don't see the touting that "poorer" people can afford a smart phone as anything other than marketing. Henry Ford brought the price of a car down to a price that people can afford. The design to do so was to sell more cars. That's what creating a market for commoditized and mass marketed products does. But the quote implies that there is some kind of huge shift of either money or power from a large company to the consumer (really poor consumers too!). It's not, it's a shift of a market from one paradigm (and a few companies) towards Google's paradigm where they make money off the back end.

nextparadigms 15y ago

I've seen more blogs recently use that quote in a negative way, even though it's taken out of context, and the original author of that quote meant it as an overall positive thing (for the world).

jrockway 15y ago
Indeed. A lot of people on the Internet have what I call "Joe the Plumber" syndrome; they imagine themselves as though they are better off than they are, and then get upset when something helps the little guy. In this case, people are upset that there is no money in developing your own phone OS, because you can't compete with Free. But in reality, most of these people don't make phone operating systems, but they do buy phones. So Android ends up being great for them: cheaper fun electronic toys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber
- yblokhin 15y ago
  "Joe the Plumber" syndrome is often a strong indicator of that person taking Ayn Rand way too seriously.
- walexander 15y ago
  I'm not sure this debate is likely to go anywhere, but what exactly is wrong with people thinking they are better off than they are, or aspiring to be? If people don't want help, why force it upon them? Disclaimer: I love Android and 100% of my slates are running it. I love that it's free. Check my profile, it's all I do all day. I'm just calling out your "Joe the Plumber" reference.
  - yblokhin 15y ago
    It's wrong for people to think they are better off than they are because such thinking leads to decisions that will hurt Joes in the end. It's exactly Joes who shoot themselves in the foot by thinking that it's an each man for himself world.

alain94040 15y ago

Except I don't believe in a free lunch. Explain to me again, slowly. Apple is spending $1B in R&D to design the iPhone. Google is spending the same amount to design Android. Where is this money coming from and is it a sustainable investment from Google?

brlewis 15y ago
Android may be cheaper for Google than having to develop apps on a multitude of mobile OSes, the largest of which is controlled by a competitor.
Daniel14 15y ago
Android pays for itself, in lots of different ways, among them and by far most importantly: Being the default search provider on 550k additional phones/day. That's worth a billion $ to Google any day.
- fabjan 15y ago
  Isn't Google the default search for iPhones as well?
  - robszumski 15y ago
    Yes, but they pay for that privilege. I haven't seen any public figures of how much that is, but it did get extended for a year or two recently.
    - napierzaza 15y ago
      There's money back and forth between these companies all the time. It's just behind closed doors for 90% of it. Patent suits are the equivalent of tabloid coverage of a public argument. It could very well be resolved behind closed doors like many other suits.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    And not the default on Verizon Android phones. I don't think it's just about search. I think sometimes Google does things Because They Can and then try to figure out how to make money later. Android's most realistic reason for existence, IMHO, is to ensure that Google users can take their data with them. If there was no Google phone, then the world would stick with Exchange, and GMail is not Exchange.

noonespecial 15y ago

The problem I have with this quote is that Android adds wealth to the world. Its a new open device platform where before there wasn't. What it does destroy (or more likely, just moves around) is money. There's a great big whopping difference between the two. What was certainly destroyed is power, ripped from the hands of a few and dissipated among many. This makes some people very angry.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
All you've done there is say "I have a different definition of wealth". From the perspective of most people discussing this wealth and money are interchangeable and it's not helpful to start substituting in new definitions (even if those definitions are justified).
- noonespecial 15y ago
  Try this one: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html Drop down to "Money is not wealth". Paul did a much better job of explaining it (and why the distinction is important).
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    As I say, I'm not saying that the definition is wrong, I'm saying that it's not the common usage and it's not what people repeating the quote mean, therefore if you disagree with the quote on that basis you're not disagree with what was actually said. When you say "it destroys [...] money" that's what they mean, you're just picking on their choice of words. As it goes I agree with you about it creating wealth (see my post elsewhere in this thread), I just don't think the right way to express it.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago

Surely Android is a disruptor of wealth rather than a destroyer of it? There are things Android does for free (or very cheaply) which ask serious questions of competing products but what about the efficiencies that are created because more people have access to functionality which enhances their lives and businesses and the new markets it creates? Free turn by turn navigation software may destroy wealth for, say, Tom Tom and Garmin, but what about all the people who now have it but didn't before and who are now wasting less time as a result? Some (not necessarily all, but some) of that time will translate into additional wealth for them and those they deal with. Similar cases can be made for getting better information on the go (via e-mail and the web) and so on. Not to mention the app developers who can now make money where no market previously existed, the handset manufacturers who are selling more expensive handsets, the networks who are selling data plans, the smartphone accessory manufacturers. It would be hard to quantify what has been created against what has been destroyed, but I'd wager that it's far more accurate to describe what has happened as a disruption or a move than destruction.