[clue-talk] saving money with Linux

[Nate Duehr]

I think these are good comments.  One "contentious" point is that at
some points in most folk's lives, you may be lucky/good/whatever enough
to have made a few bucks, and there's a crossover in the curve between
money and time spent messing with things to make them "just work".

I think your last paragraph proves that point: 

>         For me, saving just $100 would be worth it to buy a used hard 
> drive and install it and learn some new programs. For many people with 
> more money than me, they might need an incentive of $500 or $1,000 in 
> savings in order to give it a try.

There's a break-even point in there somewhere, and the commercial
computer makers and OS makers know down to the penny where it is for
their desired "marketshare" points.  They know exactly what prices to
put on their products to get the numbers Wall Street wants out of their
companies.  It's not difficult math, really... they just have to watch
for changes in the "technology landscape" that disrupt their pricing
models.

Linux, while quite disrupting to the server world, and apparently (by
the numbers put out yesterday by the Netbook folks) disruptive in the
"underpowered small 1990's laptop" market... 

[Oops, did I say that?! Uh-oh. That's what Netbooks are to me...
underpowered laptops I could have purchased in 1995.  Toshiba Portege
3010 was soooo cool back then!  HA!... LOL!...]

But for the majority of the "market", it just hasn't made headway on the
desktop -- for numerous reasons that I (and others) have gone into
before on this list... and a boatload of inertia.  

When someone can pick up Windows 7 Home for less than $100... and entire
small laptops for less than $400... the "time value of money" kicks in,
in reverse.  Their time is worth more than the $100/$400.

At first I thought the economic downturn would be a "perfect storm" for
Linux to some extent... folks would gladly trade some time for money. 
But it hasn't worked out that way.  People have flocked to Apple Stores,
pursuing what they perceive to be lasting value instead, at high cost. 
Whether that's the right move or not, I won't judge... but it's the
opposite of what I expected.  

Most retailers in all sectors have announced that "high end product
sales" haven't slipped AT ALL during this economic down-turn.  Margins
at the LOW end on high-quantity/low-dollar products have been where
they've gotten hammered, making Netbooks the "neatest thing since sliced
bread" on that end of the PC/laptop scale.

Personally ONLY the portability of a Netbook is appealing... the CPU's
are dogs, the RAM and drive space limited, and it was only a few years
ago where I decided that traditional "desktop" machines weren't going to
be purchased at my house anymore... powerful laptops fit the bill for
all-'round computing, especially with 802.11n in place now.  I don't
want to go backwards on the performance-scale to save $100-$200 in
price...

But that's just me.  Interesting to see whether other folks on the list
are enamored with Netbooks?  I *almost* bought a Dell Mini 9 to make a
"hackintosh" out of it, but decided a doggy, slow, ultra-portable Mac
wasn't really going to fit what I need/actually use my machines for
these days.

Thoughts everyone?  Are most of these Netbooks doomed to head to the
landfill in 2 years when the economy is starting to roar upward again,
as people get tired of waiting on them to do "X" jobs?  Or will they
become the "keep it next to me on the coffee table" e-mail, social
networking, not-really-used-for-"real"-computer stuff machines and not
be thrown away?

Just curious what the group thinks.  As far as Linux on the Desktop
goes, y'all know I don't "believe" on that one... still debating and
changing and breaking KDE/Gnome/xfce/whatever-the-heck-else after all
these years, and no standard working desktop for commercial software to
develop to?  Seriously.

Hopefully everyone's enjoying the beginning of the holiday season.  Sure
has been @#(&@#*(@^ cold out lately!!!  That 20F heat wave today feels
pretty good!

-- 
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com