241–250 of 276 posts
I suspect an additional reason: their customers are not very price-sensitive. They obviously can't compete with paper on price, so they don't even try.
I'd be a customer if the price was lower..
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could replace E-Ink in China , and maybe they already have. But China's disregard for IP protections doesn't mean that goods created in China that violate international IP agreements can be exported.
Boox exports to the US and violates GPL.
https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/ https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st... https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/firmware-liber... https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/oct/01/new-copyleft-stra...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Volume doesn't always equate to greater profit. High margin luxury goods are a valid business strategy too. I'm sure they're doing the thing that their data points to as netting them the largest profit.
The "luxury goods" strategy is viable in a direct to consumer play. But does it still apply at the component level? If anything, I'd think there's an aversion to lower volume, single-source boutique parts just because of the fear of supply chain kinks. Maybe there's some marketing case to be made of "you can elevate your product's market position with expensive premium components" but that argument has a lot of movin…
Again, I think it's...rather a lot of hubris to assume that a company is doing the less profitable thing (and it is an assumption, since none of us have better data than they do).
That said, sure, we can speculate there may be other factors at play.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Volume doesn't always equate to greater profit. High margin luxury goods are a valid business strategy too. I'm sure they're doing the thing that their data points to as netting them the largest profit.
FWIW, I believe this has been debunked. Volume (when there is a net margin) always equates to greater profit until market saturation. Veblen goods rarely work for niche markets but can work for commodity markets (see cars and watches for examples).
If you're saying that even holding a monopoly, the most profitable price point is at market saturation, I'd need to see something backing that. And also what you mean by market saturation; the cost of parts for an iPhone 11 Pro is estimated to be ~$490. The list price is, what, $1100? You're basically saying that either they've already achieved market saturation, and would gain no new customers dropping the price to $600 (parts + $100 for distribution, assembly, etc), or that they're leaving money on the table. I find both of those very hard to believe. So maybe I'm misunderstanding you?
Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…
I understand where you are coming from. I have a love-hate relationship with patents. That said, I try not to pass judgement on such things until I fully understand the story (not saying you don't). For example, if a technology took ten years and ten billion dollars to develop to the point of it being commercially viable, well, yeah, a patent-protected monopoly is likely the ethically correct privilege the inventors…
I think your observation is much more accurate than the other speculations about patents I have seen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I could bind a 8/10" eInk tablet that was around $200 (or $300) on which I could read and reply to my emails, read RSS feeds, check my calendar and take handwritten notes on it (that I could export/sync) I'd constantly use it.
These guys sell something like that: https://www.boox.com/ I've heard they are great except for the GPL violations...
https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/ https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st... https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/firmware-liber... https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/oct/01/new-copyleft-stra...
Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…
Software patents are the ones that make no sense because software is already protected by copyright and patents were never intended to protect algorithms.
I own a reMarkable 2. There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker. Conversely, I find it hard to justify the cost of an iPad, becuase I already have a phone and several laptops. I can't see a situation where a tablet would be more useful to me, so I've never bought one. Turns out different people have different needs, and the e-ink note-taking market caters to that. Most people wou…
> There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker. Would you mind saying what you find most useful? I have an aging iPad and would very much like to replace it with an a-ink device because I don’t like staring at a light source.
It's like being able to carry an infinite number of infinitely long paper notebooks with you.
I used to get through about one paper notebook a month, and couldn't find notes I'd taken 3+ months ago. Now everything I've ever noted is available with 5-30 seconds of searching and paging about.
The fact that, if I've written a bunch of notes in the wrong place, I can cut and paste them elsewhere is something I use every day. Everything is so much more organised.
Also, and it's definitely NOT designed as an e-reader, but if you convert your ebooks to fit the screen, it's approximately the size of a hardback book page, which I find miles more comfortable to read from than my Kindle.
Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…
Patents encourage innovation. In exchange for publishing your tech, you get protection from those who might copy it for ~10-20 years. You get to make money from it and the world benefits from knowing the details of your technology. Software patents are the ones that make no sense because software is already protected by copyright and patents were never intended to protect algorithms.
This is stated theory of why patents work, not actual evidence that they work.