Oleg Drokin wrote: >Hello! > >On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 04:59:59PM +0300, Hans Reiser wrote: > >>>Sure, because they have not so much money, BUT they are trying to get >>>as much as possible for their money. >>>If persented with choice to get 15Gb drive for $110 + advanced filesystem >>>for >>>it for $11 (10 % of the cost) or 30 Gb drive for $121, what would they >>>choose? >>>People I know would stick to 2nd offer ;) (and for used hardware price >>>difference is even less) >>>Now you may say that 10% of HW cost is a lot and you'd charge only 1% so >>>that >>>truely everyone can access the software. It above example 1% is $1.1 (or >>>even >>>$1.2 for bigger drive). Mouse can be bought for these money ;) >>>My logic is that poor people are often way too careful to spend any extra >>>money in addition to whatever they really need. >>> >>I think your example of twice the storage for 10% more in hardware cost >>is misleading. >> >No. This was situation half a year ago. >Here is current prices (from http://shop.antex.ru not the cheapest place): >HDD 20,4 Gb Seagate U6 ST 320410A UDMA100, 5400rpm $81,00 >HDD 40,8 Gb Seagate U6 ST 340810A UDMA100, 5400rpm $94,00 >HDD 60 GB IBM IC35L060AVER07-0 UDMA100, 7200rpm $150,00 > >Last example is so expensive because it is 7200 rpms, so similar 5400 rpms model >would cost at least $20 less > >So my numbers are pretty accurate, I think. >
Your numbers may be accurate, but they represent an anomaly. Most hardware features have a negative economy of scale. > > >>Basing software costs on hardware costs means that poor people are asked >>to pay $100 instead of $600 (assuming they by computers for 1/6th of the >> >So you mean charging percentage of whole PC cost, then it gets even worse. >Consider that one can buy cheap PC for $500, if we speak 10% here, it means >that one have a choice: to buy a bunch of software for $50, to buy >256M more RAM (SDRAM for $32) + another 128M RAM for $19 (or something >else) and get his box much faster and so on. Or to spend these money on >better/bigger HDD. > Well, if you have a choice between 25% more hardware, or having some good software on your computer, you should get the good software. Hardware is something you buy to run software. > > >>cost of rich people's computers). Sure they would rather pay nothing at >>all, but that isn't fair to the wealthy that they should pay for everything. >> >Sure, it is not fair. But poors have their own arguments. >Consider you have cheap box and $50 to spend, what'll you spend these money >for? (taking in account that there is really free software, and your time >cost next to nothing and you do not want to pirate stuff (which is a very wild >assumption)) > well, I for one would prefer framemaker and a good spreadsheet over more hardware plus free linux software. But of course framemaker costs $800, and I don't know what a good spreadsheet costs nowadays..... better to have good software than to have good hardware most of the time. Hans
