$30 Landfill Android mobes are proof that capitalism ROCKS

Re: There's no way that landfill Android can be considered capitalism done right

Yes, the phone division got eaten, with the help of Elop who oddly seemed to take the wrong turn at every fork in the road (burning Symbian instead of transitioning to a new platform, not selling the N9 in any market that mattered and burying Meamo/MeeGo, buying Meltemi and then burying it as if he didn't want anyone else to get hold of it, betting the farm on Windows Phone, etc... etc...).

Re: history repeats

Try a landfill Android and then compare it to an old Symbian 3 phone which gets by on 256MB RAM and 600mHz CPU. Then wonder where the extra computing power has gone.

Re: history repeats

You, sir, have idea what you're talking about.

A "modern" Symbian Phone is even today a very capable Phone with a lot of things done beter than Android, WP or iOS. E.g. the Nokia 808 has an extremely loud speaker, has native build-in call recording at exceptional quality, a proper file manager, both cloud an non-cloud syncing, it has themes that changes a lot more than a stupid launcher does. And in this particular case STILL has the very best still imaging ever on a phone. While I can't hear my SGS5 when its my coat in a leather pouch, can't do full call recording (which include recording using a BT earpiece) without rooting and tampering and even then with only one particular app. And that's just a few examples. People should stop comparing an N95 or older with the later Belle models. Nokia made some terrific handsets in the past starting with the N8. Not to mention that everybody seems to fotget that they HAD their Symbian successor planned. Harmattan! That N9 was the ultimate proof that Nokia could deliver. If it wasn't for that moron than Meego would today be that 3rd ecosystem with a lot more love from the dev-community than that crippled shit from Microsoft.

Re: history repeats

"But anything pre-iPhone is positively primitive."

When the iphone came out, what it could do vs my Symbian phone was basic...the only good thing was the larger screen.. it took years for them to get simple copy-paste functionality!

Re: "Higher prices mean cheaper electricity for everyone"

>I don't know why but I always have a suspicion that I am being taken for a ride but am not bright enough to know what ride that is.

I'm sure you're bright enough, but perhaps you haven't spent too much time thinking about these things? If Mr Worstall inspires you to learn and think more about these topics more then he'll have done you a service, regardless of whether your eventual conclusion is different to his or in agreement.

Even if you think he is selling snake oil, then at least his articles will inoculate you against similar arguments from others.

Re: "Higher prices mean cheaper electricity for everyone"

Money is Debt. Simple as that. Before money, people traded. If you didn't have anything that the guy you were trading with wanted then there was no trade. Debt\money allows a trade to occur with a deference of payment until a later date. As more people get involved in this it makes sense to trade debts

For example, Alice owes Bob 3 sheep and Bob owes Chaz 3 sheep. Bob can either transfer the debt or try and defer payment to Chaz in the hope that Alice pays up and he can shear the sheep before passing them on to Chaz, thus having something else to trade with and so it goes on...

Money is debt, investment of debt can lead to the creation of the ability to create more debt \money.

Of course if the sheep had died whilst I'm Bobs possession then Chaz might get a bit annoyed but that's the risk you take with investments.

Re: "What is money"

Money (as used now-a-days) is a con trick.

In ancient times it was a lump of precious (shiny) metal.

Later it was a 'promise to pay' written on a piece of paper that could be converted to precious metal.

For some it was silver (Sterling) or some gold (Gold Standard)

Now it is just a promise that you may get something in exchange for the piece of paper.

Re: "Higher prices mean cheaper electricity for everyone"

"...owes as much to Moore's law as it does to free market capitalism."

Moore's law is a product of free market capitalism.

Re: "Higher prices mean cheaper electricity for everyone"

The research was done by comparing economies at similar levels of development, their growth rates, and mobile phone penetration. We're as sure as we ever are here about causation, yes.

Or, alternatively, Moore's Law is just a sector specific example of what capitalism does. As more than one economist has pointed out, we do actually know the date that Elizabeth I received her first pair of stockings. Capitalism's achievement was that Victorian factory girls had them too.

@Tapeador: Micro and macro formulas

"The answer is to find a well-written introductory economics textbook which covers micro- and macro-economics, and read it thoughtfully, thinking about each formula and how they might and might not manifest in business, and making a note of each one and any phenomena you can think of yourself as being associated with it. "

And there's the problem, believing that the formulas are actually ACCURATE.

As the 2008 crash proved, the problem with the economic theory is that they create formulas to explain the theoretical workings of a economy - either micro or macro - yet cannot factor in human reactions to the economic forces driving the underlying variables, thereby relegating economics to a vapid pseudoscience as it fails to accurately forecast the true solutions.

Not a SINGLE formula accounted for homeowners walking away from their equity and investment - but they did. Leaving the economists high and dry in their theories of efficient markets and controlled growth. The economists were stunned: what do you mean that people walked out of their houses, their down payments and their mortgage commitments?! That shouldn't happen!

Yet, it did.

For decades the economists have been studying theories, patting themselves on the back in their self-wonderment of their abilities...and, for decades, every boom and bust cycle has left them in their own ashes trying to figure out where they went wrong. For decades. Their self-glorifying formulas explain what happened before but, since they fundamentally fail to take into account human unpredictability, they cannot predict what happens in the future. The two major schools of economic theory - "freshwater" and "saltwater" - have argued between each other for 40 years as to who better explains patterns based upon past performance, attempting to say that "Since it worked before, it will work again". Usually, but not always - yet the formulas state that point, "Always". Reality hasn't worked like that (yet).

If ANYTHING is to be learned from the past 7 years is that truth - economic studies took a BEATING in credibility that they have yet to recover from. The formulas are fantasy if they have no relation to actual events.

Re: Have you had a closer look at that 'landfill' recently?

you will be stuck with whatever (probably already a couple of years old) version of Android it was supplied with

But if that version is adequate to do what the phone needs to do, who cares?

Re: Have you had a closer look at that 'landfill' recently?

gotes:"A few years down the line you find that less and less apps are supported"

What actually happens is Google removes a permission or 2 with each release, borks up some other support (usually claiming 'it was never meant to work that way') and generally breaks existing apps. Some apps will be fixed, some won't. In some ways it's better to *not* upgrade Android devices, my old Xperia never performed properly after upgrading past Gingerbread.

But the poor manufacturer update support will be a massively more dangerous problem for this market. I can afford to store no sensitive information on my phone, I have a more secure PC for that. These devices are going to be the only computing device for many and handling sensitive data. And they won't be secure enough.

Re: Have you had a closer look at that 'landfill' recently?

> more like Model T cars.

If only - Imagine if you were able to buy a Series 2/3 Landrover clone for 1/10 - 1/20 the price of the latest "Victoria Beckham Inspired" Range Rover

"Yeah, but within economics, we'd probably call that more production."

In which case you've just pointed out that economics misrepresents fact.

More rubbish

"""But by definition, if they are getting richer then they are producing more"

Not true. They may well be simply selling what they produce more efficiently,"

Yeah, but within economics, we'd probably call that more production. The "more usable production" point you're rightly making normally drops the "usable" as we all assume its there."

No. More production means an increase in the real value of products produced. Reducing the costs [inputs] does not mean increasing production (Value of goods is the same, income is increased)

Or another way of looking at it - by having better communication they were able to operate a cartel to restrict the amount of fish on the market and charge more

Re: A selfish view

Interesting essay. Maybe you should go into some of the things that he mentions at the end so that us non-economists get a better understanding.