Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: About the Dark Side
From: David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 13:15:52 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: September 30, 2007 12:33:20 PM EDT To: Ole Jacobsen <ole () cisco com> Cc: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: About the Dark Side
Here is the part I don't understand: In many parts of the world the sale of "cool" replacement ('upgrade') handsets is Big Buiness. While having AT&T as the exclusive provide in the US might be a good way for Apple to get started in the handset business, why can't they just SELL THE PHONE at a premium to folks who are willing to pay. Surely this would sell a lot more iPhones at the end of the day?
Ole, Thanks. I suspect the main issue is that the carriers got themselves into the box early on of subsidizing phones tied to contracts, and now there's no effective way out in terms of the mass market. People are used to cheap phones, and only specialized users (business users, other power users, heavy e-mail users, etc.) will pay for more expensive phones, and even they usually expect it to be partly subsidized at least -- with the iPhone being a notable exception. I don't see the iPhone model becoming the standard though -- I suspect it's an aberration in the normal subsidization model that we won't see repeated on that scale very frequently. We'll see over time. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)
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- Re: About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)
- Re: About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)
- Re: Re: About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)
- Re: About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)
- Re: About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)
- Re: About the Dark Side David Farber (Sep 30)