The reason there is an aftermarket for Nexus hardware is that Google intended for Android to be open and generative from the start, pointedly saying that Nexus is ???unlocked and contract free.??? This is why, even though Google does lots of business with mobile phone company operators, it is those operators??? friend only to the degree it helps lead those operators past current customer-entrapment business models and into a future thick with positive economic externalities. Amidst those externalities, phone companies will still enjoy huge built-out infrastructure and other first-mover advantages. They will wake up and smell the infinity.
Tag Archives: economics
Tech M&A activity in 2012
Interestingly, the bulk of acquired companies had not raised investment. 76% of private tech companies that were bought up last year had bootstrapped instead of turning to VCs.
via thenextweb.com
Low cost of entry
Asteroid mining and a post-scarcity economy
By 2017, larger DragonFly probes will be sent out on two- to four-year missions that will employ a unique 3D printing system to process asteroid ore and produce pure nickel, which could be stamped into specific parts or ingots. The probes will collect 50-100lbs of material and return it to orbit ??? but there it will most likely stay, for use as building materials.
DSI says it has designs for robots that can be sent off to harvest not just nickel, but also other metals, liquids, and petroleum products. The end goal is a series of machines such as those proposed by US physicist John von Neumann, which could self-replicate and strip asteroids down to nothing.
NZ A Star Paying To Act In A Supporting Role
Mr Joyce offers an anecdote to illustrate his argument: in a visit to India last year, he found “everybody was talking about how massively beautiful New Zealand was”.
When he asked about this they told him, “Oh, these two Bollywood movies that were done in New Zealand, it’s just lifted the profile of New Zealand so magnificently in India.”
via stuff.co.nz
Joyce squirms all through this doughty defence of the dodgy, and if Key still believes there were votes in the Hobbit capitulations he’s not as in touch as he was.
As for the “anecdote,” how much did we pay Bollywood to bring NZ attention to India’s billion odd?
As for the movie industries special needs, because it provides special benefits, FFS.
To understand Christmas, go to the pub
The ???economics of the family??? is a prime example of an economic imperialism that seeks to account for all behaviour through a distorted concept of rationality, an extreme example of economists??? notorious physics envy. Some models developed in physics demonstrate a combination of simplicity and wide explanatory power so remarkable that it makes no sense to think about the world in any other way.
But such powerful explanations are rarely available in other natural sciences, and almost never in social sciences. Even the visit to the bar is governed by a complex and tacit collection of social conventions. How do you know that you have bought the beer but only rented the glass?
via johnkay.com
An economist and an anthropologist go into a bar… There’s a lot more to it.
TPP traps – we need to know the costs as well as the gains
In 2005 the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) was signed. Some agricultural tariffs were reduced immediately. Sugar wasn’t. Australian beef won’t enjoy duty free access to the US market until 2023.
Australia accepted that trade – US market access in exchange for US copyright demands.
A report from the Australian Productivity Commission – the Government’s independent research and advisory body – indicated that Australia suffered a net loss under AUSFTA as a whole because of accepting the US copyright demands.
So why has our political leadership not talked about the costs of accepting the US copyright demands?
via nzherald.co.nz
Why wouldn’t you look at the total cost/benefit analysis? Because you want the political benefit at any cost. Just like the Government did with the Hobbit, and may do over the dissatisfaction Chorus has expressed at the Commerce Commission copper/UBA price determinations.
December in Dubai
Telephony: Sender Pays
In many ways the telephone leaned heavily on the telegraph service for its service model, which, in turn, leaned on the postal service, establishing a provenance for the telephone service model that stretched back over some centuries to at least the 1680s and London’s Penny Post, if not earlier.
The postal service model that gained ascendency over the preceding centuries was one in which the original sender of the letter paid for the entire service of letter delivery. If the postal service that received the letter in the first place needed to use the services of a different postal service to complete the delivery, neither the sender nor the intended recipient were aware of it. The postal services were meant to divide the money received from the sender to deliver the letter, and apportion it between themselves to compensate each service provider for undertaking its part in the delivery of the letter.
The telephone service, for the most part, operates in a very similar fashion. The caller pays for the entire cost of the call, and the called party pays nothing.
via cisco.com
Of course, the called party rarely paid nothing. Perhaps no additional charge to receive, but then they had subscribed to the service with the purpose of receiving. So it was that the “free” reception of letters in a box on side of the road, was never akin to the paid reception of calls at a subscribers telephone.
Google???s looming hegemony
Large utility companies worry about Google. Why? Unlike those who mock Google for being a “one-trick pony”, with 99% of its revenue coming from Adwords, they connect the dots. Right before our eyes, the search giant is weaving a web of services and applications aimed at collecting more and more data about everyone and every activity. This accumulation of exabytes (and the ability to process such almost unconceivable volumes) is bound to impact sectors ranging from power generation, transportation, and telecommunications.
Consider the following trends. At every level, Western countries are crumbling under their debt load. Nations, states, counties, municipalities become unable to support the investment necessary to modernize — sometimes even to maintain — critical infrastructures. Globally, tax-raising capabilities are diminishing.
via mondaynote.com
The reason for the concern, and the solution to the decay of State actors is, Google’s information collection and analysis capability which may become essential to assessing the PPP risk (despite always being underwritten by the tax payer).
T-Mobile CEO confirms the iPhone and the death of phone subsidies
T-Mobile is eliminating all device subsidies in 2013, requiring new customers to pay full price for their phones up front, buy it on installment or bring their own unlocked devices, Legere said speaking at corporate parent Deutsche Telekom’s Capital Markets Day in Bonn.
T-Mobile will shift entirely to its unsubsidized Value Plans, which offer customers far cheaper rates for voice and particular data. Traditionally carriers factor subsidies into their normal contracts rates – basically you’re paying a mortgage on your phone. With the Value program, T-Mobile is keeping the contract, but passing what it saves on subsidies back to consumer.
via gigaom.com
Sky has never bought you a TV set. The subsidy has always been a burden, justifying lock-in contract periods. The era of opportunistic cellco choice on the fly for best bargain data bundles gets closer.
???Call of Duty??? Reaches $1 Billion Faster Than ???Avatar???
???Call of Duty: Black Ops II,??? thelatest installment in Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI)???s best-sellingvideo-game franchise, topped $1 billion in retail sales withinits first 15 days of release.
The sales figure, which relies on Chart-Track retail data,means ???Call of Duty??? reached $1 billion faster than the movie???Avatar,??? the record holder for feature films, Activision saidtoday in a statement. The previous installment in the seriesaccomplished that same feat last year. It took 16 days to reachthe $1 billion milestone, compared with 17 for ???Avatar,??? whichcame out in 2009
via bloomberg.com
Hamish MacEwan 