community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 23.08.2013 um 17:05 schrieb kardan:

> On Fri, 23 Aug 2013 13:45:20 +0000
> Bob Ham <rah at settrans.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 2013-08-23 11:27, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>>> Am 23.08.2013 um 13:18 schrieb Bob Ham:
>>> 
>>>> On 2013-08-23 10:56, Paul Wise wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Bob Ham wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I don't understand.  What is the green light with respect to the 
>>>>>> GTA04?
>>>>> 
>>>>> That was already mentioned; money for components being available.
>>>> 
>>>> The fact that there is *no* money was mentioned.  Here you seem to 
>>>> be implying some kind of transition from there being no money to
>>>> money being available.  How is that transition going to happen?
>>>> What's going to cause the green light to go on?
>>> 
>>> People deciding to spend some money instead of complaining that it
>>> is too expensive.
> 
> We all know
> * there is no customer
> * there is no money
> * there is no campaign
> * there is no prospect
> * there is no website (that could attract anybody)
> * people on this list gave up their dream or just don't care
> 
> May the last point be controversial, one has to admit that the below
> following thoughts are neither hard to obtain nor new. 
> 
>> What is going to cause people to decide that?
> 
> The well meaning father interrogating it's children. I don't take it as
> trolling, as this community is lacking exactly that kind of straight
> thinking. So I try to answer.
> 
> First one could ask, how many people are interested in such a phone?
> According to the just failed campaign a lot.

I would consider 20k backers of the Ubuntu Edge not as "a lot". Please
calculate what 300 million smartphones (mostly iOS and Android) sold
per year means to be sold per hour. That is "a lot".

And, the Ubuntu Edge did not have the same targets as anyone of us has.
Rather, they did not even care much about openness and freedom. Their
key goal is about "convergence" between computer and smartphone and
to catch attention by Über-features.

> 
> Second also money was not their problem, but the ridiculous threshold.

Which threshold? The 32 million USD? Well, they have to solve the same
issue that we have: building a lower number of units (which a lower threshold
would imply) increases component and production cost.

I.e. if they had set the limit at 12 Mio they would have had to increase the price
to 795 USD.

At 795 USD they would have reached 8 Mio only.

So they would have had to set the price at 895 USD. etc.

I don't think the threshold was just some arbitrary value. It was based on the
economics inside the production process.

> 
> Third our community watched them failing without even trying to raise
> awareness for our community phone.

Well, what could we have done? How could we have changed their
campain?

No, I think we can only learn from the outcome of their campaign,
which we are currently discussion if I remember the starting point 
correctly...

> Fourth there is no nice advertising I could forward to people in
> my family (or anybody with money). It's just all made by and for nerds.

Because it is not a device for the general public, but nerds.

You can't advertize meat to a vegetarian.

> Fifth there is some expectation in the air me to come up with a new
> website design. So I better stop here for the next hours to hack
> something which will hopefully be better than what we have.
> 
> I doubt it will make the key change alone. But it's already good to have
> a nice and clear website with downloadable PDF to print out posters to
> hang out in shops/hackerspaces/cityhalls/trains or any kind of
> alternative shops like the ones where you get already registered ready
> to use SIM cards from as these are the places where people care about
> anonymity.

What should be the message of such posters?

-- hns