Thursday, March 19, 2009

Just a thought

USB keys, memory sticks or whatever you want to call them are a bit of a mystery to me. Not in how they store all that information in such a small space but more from an economic standpoint. I mean, by the time you get around to researching, developing and actually producing theses things, they are obsolete. You start selling them for $1000 and within 18 months you can't give them away. No one is stupid enough to pay the ridiculous original price tag (if you have a brain). So when are you making money? After the initial 5 second euphoria of being the coolest thing out there with the most storage capacity you pretty much are stuck with a seemingly endless supply. This is when you start including them with toothbrushes and put them in cereal boxes...

This brings me back to the original question: How are companies making money off of these things?


This dilemma reminds me of the 93 dollars I paid for a 512mb 'stick' in 2003 but most importantly of the folding chair fiasco of the late nineties...

1 comment:

Andrew Cockell said...

yeah i remember paying around 100 bucks for one that was 512 too - now they sell 4gig ones for 10 bucks at loblaws

what they need to start doing is making this tech standard in all computers (not only the high-end ones) - saves space, wieght and a crap load of heat producing energy