The author's argument is faulty. The value from being able to take notes / manage to-dos properly on a multitouch device may be rather great to many people. Ho

The author's argument is faulty. The value from being able to take notes / manage to-dos properly on a multitouch device may be rather great to many people. However, the price is not determined by this. The price is the result of an equilibrium. There is a process of underbidding going on which lowers the price for the app very close to cost of producing it, until it is unattractive for new competitors to enter the market. The magic thing about this is that it delivers these products to the world in great number at close-to-zero pricing and that's pretty nice for the world as a whole. Think about it this way: It was worth buying mainframe computers at many million dollars a piece and with embarissingly low computing power back in the 70s to some people. Obviously, when these people buy a computer with a million times the performance at 1/1000th of the price they get a great deal. So it's fair to say that the value of commodity computers is to some people much much higher than the market price. That does not change the fact that producing commodity computers is a cut-throat business with ultra slim margins. So what I am trying to say is that this emotional / ethical notion of value needs to be seen as distinct from market pricing.