Software Manuals and Trickle-Down Theory
I’m printing out an 87-page PDF document that came on the disc with my Coldstone software. The document is the complete user manual – a print edition was not included.
Of course, it’s the lack of a print edition of the manual that enables Ambrosia Software to sell the Coldstone Game Engine at the low price of $49. All they have to send you is a single CD-ROM. No bulky cardboard boxes, no heavy paper manuals – just one single disc of plastic and a tiny postcard with your registration number on it.
The last time I purchased Microsoft software, it was handed to me in a plain jewel box without so much as a paper insert. It cost upwards of $100. It didn’t come with a manual, either. Not even a quickstart guide. Not even a postcard. All of the documentation was in PDF format.
See, Ambrosia actually passes savings on to the customer. Microsoft pockets them.
Then it occurred to me (after inspiration from John’s latest entry at Open Source Politics that Microsoft is a perfect illustration of the way trickle-down economics really works.
Consider: The savings from not providing a paper manual are astronomical. We’re talking more than just printing and binding, here. We’re talking a fortune saved on shipping as a paper manual frequently weighs more than ten times the weight of the software. We’re talking packagng that can be smaller and simpler. In Ambrosia’s case, the savings are passed on to the customer.
Microsoft, however, enjoys a larger profit margin because of their decision to distribute digital manuals without print copies. And they continue to gouge the customer for all they’re worth.
The problem with trickle-down is that, when you think about it, very little trickles down that you would actually like to get on you. Trickle-down economics is based on the theory that if we give the money to the rich, they’re more likely to turn around and hire the poor. The money then “trickles down” to the poor. Of course, just like water getting sloshed out of a bathtub, it winds up in a diminished portion, it’s filthy, and it runs right through the floorboards before you can catch it.
Which would be the case in an Ambrosia world. But in Microsoft land, not a single drop of that water gets out of the tub. More money is more money, and the rich didn’t get where they are today by spending more money when they had it. Give the corporations more money back, and they’re more likely to report bigger profits than they are to report more hirings.
And this, my friends, is the general way of the world.