Cost of iPhone X in 1957 • Hacker News Board

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#151

Post by sowbug » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #84

sowbug wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT: thank you for not saying "But that begs the question." Two reasons: (1) it would have been incorrect, and (2) the correct use of the expression "beg the question" is doomed, and we should put it out of its misery.

I prefer the "improper" usage. It makes more sense and is more commonly understood. It begs the question: why doesn't everyone just use it that way?

People don't normally use the word "beg" in that sense. "I'm begging you, please shut up" is the closest to an ordinary usage of the word -- and even that's being a little melodramatic. If they're talking about highlighting something for discussion, they'd say "you make a good point," or "you raise another issue," or "that brings up a question," or "which leads to another thing," etc.

This leaves "begs the question" as a weird, pretentious-sounding, overly emphatic expression that automatically annoys some percentage of the audience and will slightly confuse the rest (for at least the next decade or so until the purists give up as they did with "irregardless," "could care less," and "literally").

Of course, if your goal truly is to unpredictably annoy semi-arbitrary subsets of people with something as neutral as your speech, then by all means, beg away. Personally, I don't have a choice. I'm a parent, and as is the case with any parent, my kids internalize everything I do. So I can't have fun adding auto-troll expressions into my communication, because they'll do the same without realizing the consequences. I don't like that the world is full of people who both (1) have the power to decide my fate, and (2) set the bozo bit from small things like the quality of my communication, but I'm pragmatic enough to accept that those people do exist and will judge my kids' fate. That's why I speak as if it matters.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#152

Post by clairity » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

nopinsight wrote: post #56

Having a billion transistors is not 10 times as useful as 100 million transistors. The diminishing return kicked in even before that. Unless a killer application needs a billion transistors, the value created over a previous iPhone is incremental. I think a better way to measure value is invention's cost effectiveness = price / (time * improvement to well-being) The denominator is how much the invention makes our lif…

your first point about diminishing returns posits a reasonable (if ambiguous) definition of (incremental) value to the consumer: that it should improve the lives of users.

but then you say...

> Google is a pretty big improvement over older search engines and is worth quite a lot although the price we pay as privacy is not obvious.

which is puzzling in light of your very own definition of incremental value.

is google's search engine so much better than bing or yandex or anything else that it deserves a much higher valuation? if you apply your own incremental definition of value to search itself, the billions of searches done on other search engines seems to contradict that conclusion. it seems the other search engines are just fine for many situations, so the incremental value of google's search is not high on either your "time" or "improvement to well-being" metric (price is hidden in ad revenue, but likely higher for google).

google's valuation broadly comes from (1) it's ad business and (2) speculation that google will conquer another industry, not from it's search technology per se, although search is certainly a core component of the ad business.

it seems to me the way that search contributes to value is that it exhibits winner-take-all characteristics (not considered in your model), so that even a slight (perceived) improvement leads people to flock to the better search engine en masse (which is how google won search in the first place, then they developed/borrowed the ad auction model and became a runaway financial success). by garnering more search queries, google has greater and better ad placement inventory (i.e., your eyeballs) to sell to advertisers.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#153

Post by quuquuquu » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

tgb wrote: post #137

quuquuquu wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-americans-spend-their-mon... Here's a chart of how a middle class American family currently spend their money. Please note 74k in income is pre tax, and 57k in expenses is post tax. So, the average American family is actually spending every dollar they earn. I don't know where technology fits in to this current budget, but you can see it's pretty much pegged due to housing and healt…

I disagree. I expect the median middle class American to have an iPhone X or other phone that costs within 15% of that. I ride the public transportation in a not-so-well-off area and new, high end phones are ubiquitous. I think the miscalculation that you're making is underestimating how important phones are for people, both in their usefulness and in their status. People will absolutely save money for an iPhone that…

Thank you for your perspective :)

High end as in iphone 5c, iphone 6, or iphone 7?

My iphone 5c, cracked screen, was like $40 off of ebay or something. When it came out, the original price was like 200-400 depending on contracts and gb capacity.

I think you will see the same thing happening with iphone 6s too.

But if you told me that you see a large number of fast food employees and janitorial employees and etc riding the bus to work, with iphone 7s in their hand in the first year of launching, I'd definitely be surprised and interested.

I too rode the bus for 3 years and never really noticed that trend among those types of workers who are struggling the most. I just saw a ton of galaxy s3 phones, which are awesome phones from 2012 or whatever.

I don't doubt your experiences however! It is a really interesting thought to have. If they are affording it, I can only assume they aren't purchasing something else, like a car or high end laptop or house.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#154

Post by jdhzzz » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

from Paul Graham's Essay "Mind the Gap" http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

Another approach would be to ask, if you were going back to the year x in a time machine, how much would you have to spend on trade goods to make your fortune? For example, if you were going back to 1970 it would certainly be less than $500, because the processing power you can get for $500 today would have been worth at least $150 million in 1970. The function goes asymptotic fairly quickly, because for times over a hundred years or so you could get all you needed in present-day trash. In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a screw top would have seemed a miracle of workmanship.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#155

Post by SilasX » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

nopinsight wrote: post #56

Having a billion transistors is not 10 times as useful as 100 million transistors. The diminishing return kicked in even before that. Unless a killer application needs a billion transistors, the value created over a previous iPhone is incremental. I think a better way to measure value is invention's cost effectiveness = price / (time * improvement to well-being) The denominator is how much the invention makes our lif…

So true! Sadly, the relevant Econ agencies work opposite to your logic. The worst example was when a Fed banker insisted that faster iPads cancel out food inflation:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-dudley-ipad/ipad-p...

You're right, 10x the transistors is less than 10x as useful. 10x faster CPU in an iPad is not 10x better, because you won't be able to harness all that speed before you hit another bottleneck. And you can't buy a fraction of an iPad. And you definitely can't eat one.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#156

Post by ctdonath » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #22

duhast wrote: post #17

Comparisons like that always assume the that price is constant with increased demand even when world GDP is spent on something. What would likely happen is first the price would go up and later down as the world manufacturing would shift to vacuum tubes production.

Yes if a government started buying trillions of vacuum tubes, companies would quickly get much more efficient at producing then and there would be a huge investment into researching alternatives. But that brings up the question, what tech could we be subsidizing today so we can get it faster?

"what tech could we be subsidizing today so we can get it faster?"

That's one of Apple's brilliant strategies: instantly commoditize new technology, paying cash for new factories that produce next-gen tech components at such high volume that prices immediately drop to commodity levels immediately.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#157

Post by SilasX » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 6:57 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #22

duhast wrote: post #17

Comparisons like that always assume the that price is constant with increased demand even when world GDP is spent on something. What would likely happen is first the price would go up and later down as the world manufacturing would shift to vacuum tubes production.

Yes if a government started buying trillions of vacuum tubes, companies would quickly get much more efficient at producing then and there would be a huge investment into researching alternatives. But that brings up the question, what tech could we be subsidizing today so we can get it faster?

In the 50s, that might have worked. But today, I imagine the effect would be to jack up investment in gaming the procurement procedures so the contracts would go to the most well connected "suppliers", who would actually cut corners since they know how to game the acceptance tests, and 90% wouldn't even work.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#158

Post by deepnotderp » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

pg314 wrote: post #71

deepnotderp wrote: post #28

It's unfair to point to one exponentially increasing technology and use that as an index for general technology. On the other hand, it's interesting they choose to use the semiconductor industry as their example because progress is slowing in the semi industry due to the laws of physics with respect to standard CMOS and innovative rescues in either architectural form or through novel device physics are very unlikely…

> glacial pace and apparent allergies to innovation Glacial pace? It followed an exponential, doubling the number of transistors every 10 months for 40 years. You would be hard-pressed to come up with another field with the same pace of innovation and progress. The amount of innovation they had to come up with to sustain that, is staggering. > A field that scorns young entrants is bound to die someday. What nonsense.…

> Glacial pace?

Try to make a chip, you'll quickly realize that your challenges will be primarily non technical in nature. It wasn't always this way, the semi industry was once incredibly innovative and open to new ideas, and that helped drive exponential progress.

>Who will produce your chips then?

I meant "die" to mean stagnate as the common euphemism in tech.

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#159

Post by pg314 » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

deepnotderp wrote: post #158

pg314 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> glacial pace and apparent allergies to innovation Glacial pace? It followed an exponential, doubling the number of transistors every 10 months for 40 years. You would be hard-pressed to come up with another field with the same pace of innovation and progress. The amount of innovation they had to come up with to sustain that, is staggering. > A field that scorns young entrants is bound to die someday. What nonsense.…

> Glacial pace? Try to make a chip, you'll quickly realize that your challenges will be primarily non technical in nature. It wasn't always this way, the semi industry was once incredibly innovative and open to new ideas, and that helped drive exponential progress. >Who will produce your chips then? I meant "die" to mean stagnate as the common euphemism in tech.

> Try to make a chip, you'll quickly realize that your challenges will be primarily non technical in nature.

I studied microelectronics. I am aware of the technical challenges. Can you explain those challenges that are primarily non-technical?

> It wasn't always this way, the semi industry was once incredibly innovative and open to new ideas, and that helped drive exponential progress.

Things like Silicon-on-insulator, high-k dielectrics, finfets, extreme ultraviolet lithography are not innovative or new ideas?

Re: Cost of iPhone X in 1957

#160

Post by feelin_googley » Sat, Sep 16, 2017, 7:55 PM UTC

morganvachon wrote: post #146

feelin_googley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fault of the webpage or the phone." Webpage. But this problem applies equally to local software. I believe there was a name for it but I cannot recall the term. The idea is that as hardware gets faster, software developers add bloat^W features so that the user always experiences the same speed. "Speed" mean something like the time taken to perform some routine user task. Microsoft has been usurping user resources li…

"By the time the user purchased a new computer, the company had a new software version that already uses up whatever resource gains the new hardware provided. Pre-installed. The end result is the user experiences the same speed." This is true, but there's a couple of other factors involved. One is the recent gains in storage efficiency, and the other is familiarity over time with the new gains. When SSDs hit the scen…

"When SSDs hit the scene, you could migrate your existing installation to solid state storage."

If by "installation" you mean the OS, I have not needed SSDs. I migrated my installation to RAM. I stopped using disk for the OS and data I am working with. I can fit everything I need in RAM. I still use disks sometimes for long term storage of infrequently accessed data, but it surprises me how infrequently I need them. For me the recognition of "immediate gains" in speed was not with the advent of SSDs it was with the availability of >= 500MB RAM. Diskless became too easy.

But I do understand what SSDs have done for other users with different requirements and I think that has been a great improvement.