Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
theguardian.com
Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#2She launches a USA only kickstarter (all rewards ship to US only). I genuinely hope she does well but I don't understand why she would exclude the global audience and alienate potential customers.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#3some teachers believe that they can help children concentrate – especially those with ADHD.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#4> Hettinger held the patent on finger spinners for eight years, but surrendered it in 2005 because she could not afford the $400 (£310) renewal fee.
Isn't this bizarre? If she couldn't monetize it and make it profitable in eight years, maybe it's for the best that someone else gets a shot.
We should not fall into the trap of thinking that intellectual property is like other forms of property. It's a trade where the people (mediated via the government) give a limited-time monopoly in exchange for promoting development. If the developer can't or won't keep up her end of the bargain, it's best for the patent to expire.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#5Napoleon said "never be a poor devil" on hearing that someone had missed a great political opportunity because they couldn't pay to fix the wheel of a carriage on their way to Paris.
Tough lesson but sounds like she has a philosophical view.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#6If she'd remained the patent holder, who's to say that the gadgets would have become popular?
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#7I think this illustrates one of the catch-22's of patents. If you hold the patent, other companies does not have incentive to make and market the invention, making it harder to create market awareness. But if you let go of the patent, unless you have the resources to compete, you're unlikely to benefit from your invention. You do have an early mover advantage, but if you don't have the means to invest, it doesn't help.
I think the interface between IP markets and the goods/services markets is deeply broken.
The core of the problem is that we have to create artificial scarcity to balance the IP economy against the "real" economy. For example: in theory, you could have access to every movie ever created for free. It doesn't cost anything to make a copy. This is unlike things like bread or haircuts, where having an infinite supply is a physical impossibility. But the people making the movies have to pay for bread and haircuts, so you have to pay them something. And to get you to pay for it, you have to balance your desire to watch movies against your need to buy bread and haircuts.
Previously we achieved this only through artificial scarcity. Now, with Spotify, you have another model which is: someone decides that everyone should pay $50-$99 a month for music, and then you have access to all the music. The problem is that this is a pretty inelastic market. It's hard to create competing services with different prices. It's also undemocratic. And the default is still artificial scarcity.
You could imagine an IP tax. Through a democratic process, we decide that X% of our incomes should be spent on developing IP. All IP is free, but you have IP credits that you spend on the IPs that have value for you, in whatever ratio you want. The number of credits the inventor/designer/creator receives in a month is then used to fairly divide the fund generated from the IP tax. IP developers also have to pay IP tax, and receive IP credits, so it would be natural for them to forward credits to the IP they depend upon. Since you can't spend the IP credits on yourself, you have no incentive to not support the IPs that you benefited from.
This solutions is just a thought experiment. It might not be feasible, and it's a government-based solution. I'm not ideologically opposed to government solutions, but it is inelegant. The point is just to think about how we could interface the IP markets with the "real" markets in a more efficient way. There must be better solutions than what we have today.
Another option may be to introduce basic income, have everything be free, and just rely on donations, crowdfunding and merchandise for extra funding. Patreon seems to show that people are actually willing to simply give money to the things they like, as long as they get credit.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#8If she'd remained the patent holder, who's to say that the gadgets would have become popular?
No one. She could have spent another 8 years doing absolutely nothing with the patent. I don't think that's the main point of the article though, it's just trying to show how an inventor of something is not necessarily the person benefiting financially from their invention.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#9That's unfortunate she hasn't earned any money off of her invention. I've been enjoying my fidget spinner. It really helps while I'm out walking the dog to give my free hand something to do, so I've been using it pretty much every day since I've gotten it. I hope her Kickstarter goes well.
I do sort of wonder if it would have gotten this popular if the patent was still active, though.
Re: Fidget spinner craze inventor struggles to make ends meet
#10some teachers believe that they can help children concentrate – especially those with ADHD.
And some believe that they are distracting to everyone else in the class: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/apr/29/secr...
Also there is no evidence yet that they do help concentration, so it is only anecdotal evidence at this stage.