danger avoids its namesake
We've been enjoying a flurry of technology purchases over here at zunta HQ. I'm sure Catherine will be introducing you all to her new laptop shortly. For my part (and as you've no doubt been irritated to find out if you've seen me in the past few days), I'm the proud owner of a new Sidekick 2.
It's pretty slick -- yeah, it's a little longer than my old color sidekick, but it's also flatter and lighter. And dig that color scheme! Very imperial stormtrooper. Better battery life and reception are on the feature list, but surely most important is the ability to buy useless accessories. I can even get it bedazzled!
Also included is the de rigeur shitty digital camera. It's not too bad in daylight:
But all my night shots have ended up looking like this (hi Brian!):
So its value only slightly transcends the "toy" level. Oh well. Overall, the device is just a better-built version of the color sidekick. There isn't anything too innovative going on. But that's okay. I really liked my color sidekick. To have a few of its most glaring flaws corrected suits me just fine.
More disappointing is a specific policy of the Sidekick's creators, Danger, Inc. Unlike other PDAish phones like the Treos, the Sidekick is a closed platform. That means that if someone wants to expand the capabilities of their phone by writing some new software or creating a ringtone, they need to buy said application or ringtone from T-Mobile -- or they need a special developer's version of the Sidekick operating system. Previously you could download this OS after agreeing that Danger wasn't responsible for providing support for it. That seems reasonable enough. If someone else wants to give you a free lunch you're welcome to take them up on it, but Danger isn't going to foot the hospital bill when you get food poisoning.
But now that option has been closed. To get the developer OS you now have to fax in this form. Danger decides if you're actually a developer or not and gives you the OS accordingly -- reports are that they are not being particularly generous in doling it out. Irritatingly, the OS specific to each individual phone (based on IMEI number), so piracy isn't an option. If you're granted access, you're then free to develop software, install other developer's creations, and submit your work for publication by Danger/T-Mobile through their online catalog function.
Danger claims that the goal of this process is to ensure a high quality of community-developed software, but that's pretty transparently not the case. Instead, it's to keep everyone dependent on the fee-based online catalog whenever they want new ringtones, or games, or simple ought-to-be-theres like an alarm clock function. I've no doubt that T-Mobile bears some -- or maybe most -- of the responsibility for this decision, but figuring out who's to blame is a bit beside the point. It's still a shameless grab for users' pocketbooks.
We've had this debate before: some folks think companies are perfectly justified in crippling their products in order to maximize the profit they can extract from their customers. I suppose without the ringtone income, the price of the Sidekick might edge up. As someone who doesn't buy a lot of ringtones, I should be happy with this arrangement. But it still doesn't sit right -- what if you bought a lamp that only took bulbs with a weird, proprietary connector? And what if the company sued or otherwise shut out anyone else who tried to manufacture compatible lightbulbs? I guess you might get a cheaper lamp since the company could count on extra lightbulb income, but I'd prefer that the whole process be transparent and the market be allowed to work its magic.
Tech companies are increasingly trying to create micromonopolies. Having grown up fighting incompatibilites between word and wordperfect or windows and macs, this might seem natural. But it's not. What if GM and Texaco worked out a deal for a proprietary gas cap that'd only be openable at Texaco stations? "If you don't like it, you can buy a different car," say those sympathetic to corporate freedom. Well, I get that the market should ideally right itself and select against these assinine innovations, but I'd rather not have to be the one doing the actual work of selecting against suboptimal products until their creators stop intentionally crippling them.
Comments
Well, I think you're misinterpreting the Joel on software column. If the microeconomics he discusses apply, then putting a price on ringtones should drive down demand for its complement, cell phones.
It's easy to see why T-Mobile would want to sell more ringtones by lowering the price of the phone. It doesn't incur costs to them to lock down the phone; it's a cost to a consumer. You say that the drive to profit isn't evil, and I agree. I just don't think it's necessarily good, either. The profit motive is like the tendency of hot gas in an engine to expand -- a natural phenomenon that can do good or evil, depending on how it's harnesses (explosion versus engine).
Personally, I feel that the drive by corporations to convert goods to services as much as possible is a bad thing. If technology improves and I can affordably buy a car that lasts me the rest of my life, it's easy to see why car companies would become worried and start exclusively selling leases, but it's hard to see why I should happily accept that situation. No subsidies for the buggy whip industry, etc etc.
Did I hypocritically choose against the open platform that I proclaim to want so badly? No, not really. I just acted in my own rational self-interest. I looked long and longingly at the treo, but it would have cost me a couple hundred dollars more upfront, plus a minimum of a 50% increase in my monthly service bill. That's more than I value an open phone platform. On the other hand, I've spent all of $5 on applications for the sidekick and don't plan on buying any more; for people like me, I doubt T-Mobile's chosen business model is paying off. I'd be much happier if T-Mobile had asked me for an extra $50 or $100 for an open platform. They'd have made more money and I would've gotten what I want.
The problem here is that the development costs involved in the phones and the byzantine mechanisms employed by the service providers prevent the market from being suffiently fine-grained, and stop it from working very efficiently. As things stood, my options were a fairly cheap closed phone or a very expensive open system. I don't believe that, for the average SK user, that gap in price will be closed by purchased ringtones and applications (over the course of a two year contract, they'd have to buy at least 5 ringtones a month).
Instead I think it's likely that the cost of the SK is accounted for the price and contract, and that the decision to close the platform was made to create what is primarily an additional, rather than offsetting, revenue source. That means I'm being milked, and I don't like it.
I interpretted the article as saying that ringtones drive down the price of
phones (not the demand). But, anyway....
As for goods vs. services, I mean, they should be able to TRY to sell whatever they can. Plenty of service-based things have failed because they're dumb ideas, too limiting and no one wawnts them (e.g. DivX, and probably all the non-iTunes music stores). As for auto leases, well, I know WAY more people that buy new cars every 4 years than stick with what they got 'til it's dead, so why shouldn't the car dealers develop a service that streamlines what people are already doing? Isn't that the very essence of innovation?
I'm not sure what kind of plan you got at T-Mobile, but the Sidekick data plan is $30/month. Treo allows a $20 or $30 plan per month. My understanding is that neither comes with a voice plan, so that would be the same for either device. The Treo costs $50 extra up front (assuming you send in the rebate on the Sidekick and buy the Treo at the T-Mobile website). So, you'd pay $50 extra for an open platform? That would be how, unless I'm really confused by their service offerings (which I admit is totally possible; they don't make it easy)
That said, I personally think a device with the Sidekick's form factor could
be developed more cheaply by using an open platform and I'm not sure why that
wasn't/isn't done. Its form factor is WAY better than the blackberry or Treo
(IMO), so who knows? I would also be willing to bet that even the most open
platform could still make tons of money on ringtones and other add-on crap,
simply because most people wouldn't know how to get the stuff for free anyway
(the whole IE-on-the-desktop thing). So, I don't get it. I don't think it's
some evil masterplan from T-Mobile as much as not being forward-thinking or
smart enough. Of course, THEY are much more the experts on this sort of thing
than I am, so I assume there's some reason.
I generally agree with you on your characterization of profit, and I would extend that to the corporation; you have to treat it like a force of nature, not a sentient being; if you keep an eye on it, and learn about it, you can control it...
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