5 ms·

Hey I thought capitalism inspired innovation. So why does nearly every phone being made today is basically a brick of glass you can't open?

nickpp 4y ago
Because that innovation is market driven and turns out "brick of glass" is what people want, no matter what you or I or the Brussels bureaucrats say.
- growse 4y ago
  > Because that innovation is market driven and turns out "brick of glass" is what people want, no matter what you or I or the Brussels bureaucrats say. History has countless examples of how the market is very bad at accounting for externalities. People may very well want just a "brick of glass", but regulation comes in and drives innovation when it turns out that selling people what they want in the short term actually needlessly harms society in the long run. "What the people want" actually has a lot of nuance and variability over different timeframes.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    History has even more examples of how planners and regulators are bad at accounting for… reality, really. Or the unexpected creativity of people bent on getting what they want in spite of "well meaning" regulators. "What harms society" actually has a lot of nuance and variability over different timeframes. I don’t think anybody can define it, actually. Regulators making nuclear power hugely expensive and activists making it wildly unpopular thus condemning us to burn coal in 2022 quickly come to mind. Or the idiocy of banning plastic straws in the west while the ocean drowns in fishing nets from Asia.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  Quite wrong. The market is efficient at solving simple issues. On the other hand a smartphone has pages long list if specs. And users have divergent preferences for those specs. The market is only able to find a common denominator that makes everyone equally unhappy. In doing so it transfers power to the few manufacturers who now make choices for the users. Even worse, manufacturers copy each other and follow fashion trends. It is almost impossible to find a phone that has a replaceable battery. It is very hard to find small phones. It is very hard to find phones with headphone jacks. It is very hard to find phones without a punchhole or notch for the camera. These are all things people desire, but either not strong enough or not enough people or both. I like the iPhone mini but not enough to sacrifice the flexibility of Android. I like displays without cutouts, but not enough to sacrifice the 4 years of updates Samsung offers. Etc. Etc. Etc.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    > things people desire, but either not strong enough or not enough people or both > I like […] but not enough > I like […] but not enough Sounds like the market has managed to understand perfectly the things people actually want in a phone versus the ones they are just paying lip service to. Taking such a long list of specs with wildly contradictory requirements and create compromise products that satisfiy the most is an extremely complex issue and something the market is uniquely suited to do - I am not aware of another mechanism that can do that, maybe a future AI.
    - felurx 4y ago
      Getting updates and not having a notch are in no way contradictory requirements.
      - nickpp 4y ago
        Maybe, but I would bet they both impact the device cost while their rank on most people's desired characteristics list is not very high.
        alexvoda 4y ago
        Non-notched screen is cheaper. Headphone jack is a minuscule cost (you still need the DAC for the speakers). There are now magnetically attached Bluetooth devices that provide a headphone jack to an iPhone and make twice as thick. This showcases perfectly that there is a market for an iPhone with a jack, but Apple has the power to decide for everyone. A user has the options: - use an old phone(for how long?) - sacrifice the jack and stay on iOS (give up) - sacrifice iOS, repurchase all apps (are they available? alternatives?) and other purchases, and find some phone that still has it (gradually all flagships other than Sony dropped it) This is not a free market, it is a market with plenty of obstacles to entry (some natural some imposed). And the following of fashion trends (mostly follow Apple) make the situation doubly toxic. In a captive market it is sufficient for one player to demonstrate the market will accept a worse offer and other players will follow through. This may sound like blasphemy, but capitalism is actually not compatible with the free market.

nickpp 4y ago

Because that innovation is market driven and turns out "brick of glass" is what people want, no matter what you or I or the Brussels bureaucrats say.

growse 4y ago
> Because that innovation is market driven and turns out "brick of glass" is what people want, no matter what you or I or the Brussels bureaucrats say. History has countless examples of how the market is very bad at accounting for externalities. People may very well want just a "brick of glass", but regulation comes in and drives innovation when it turns out that selling people what they want in the short term actually needlessly harms society in the long run. "What the people want" actually has a lot of nuance and variability over different timeframes.
- nickpp 4y ago
  History has even more examples of how planners and regulators are bad at accounting for… reality, really. Or the unexpected creativity of people bent on getting what they want in spite of "well meaning" regulators. "What harms society" actually has a lot of nuance and variability over different timeframes. I don’t think anybody can define it, actually. Regulators making nuclear power hugely expensive and activists making it wildly unpopular thus condemning us to burn coal in 2022 quickly come to mind. Or the idiocy of banning plastic straws in the west while the ocean drowns in fishing nets from Asia.
alexvoda 4y ago
Quite wrong. The market is efficient at solving simple issues. On the other hand a smartphone has pages long list if specs. And users have divergent preferences for those specs. The market is only able to find a common denominator that makes everyone equally unhappy. In doing so it transfers power to the few manufacturers who now make choices for the users. Even worse, manufacturers copy each other and follow fashion trends. It is almost impossible to find a phone that has a replaceable battery. It is very hard to find small phones. It is very hard to find phones with headphone jacks. It is very hard to find phones without a punchhole or notch for the camera. These are all things people desire, but either not strong enough or not enough people or both. I like the iPhone mini but not enough to sacrifice the flexibility of Android. I like displays without cutouts, but not enough to sacrifice the 4 years of updates Samsung offers. Etc. Etc. Etc.
- nickpp 4y ago
  > things people desire, but either not strong enough or not enough people or both > I like […] but not enough > I like […] but not enough Sounds like the market has managed to understand perfectly the things people actually want in a phone versus the ones they are just paying lip service to. Taking such a long list of specs with wildly contradictory requirements and create compromise products that satisfiy the most is an extremely complex issue and something the market is uniquely suited to do - I am not aware of another mechanism that can do that, maybe a future AI.
  - felurx 4y ago
    Getting updates and not having a notch are in no way contradictory requirements.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      Maybe, but I would bet they both impact the device cost while their rank on most people's desired characteristics list is not very high.
      - alexvoda 4y ago
        Non-notched screen is cheaper. Headphone jack is a minuscule cost (you still need the DAC for the speakers). There are now magnetically attached Bluetooth devices that provide a headphone jack to an iPhone and make twice as thick. This showcases perfectly that there is a market for an iPhone with a jack, but Apple has the power to decide for everyone. A user has the options: - use an old phone(for how long?) - sacrifice the jack and stay on iOS (give up) - sacrifice iOS, repurchase all apps (are they available? alternatives?) and other purchases, and find some phone that still has it (gradually all flagships other than Sony dropped it) This is not a free market, it is a market with plenty of obstacles to entry (some natural some imposed). And the following of fashion trends (mostly follow Apple) make the situation doubly toxic. In a captive market it is sufficient for one player to demonstrate the market will accept a worse offer and other players will follow through. This may sound like blasphemy, but capitalism is actually not compatible with the free market.