links for 2009-08-28

While this isn't quite the group I'd put in a room to create the future of money the time for and opportunity is perhaps just around the corner.

Let's hope by next year Apple gives us some choice in the US. I never read anything that suggests AT&T is a well run company that users love. As a customer it's disappointing to simply question your commitment to any company's future.

If you add the app value and profit to what others are getting out of their smartphones then strategically Apple has another ace up their sleeve. With the growth of the app market and their 33% margin before their costs it has real potential to subsidize any technology price war. Maybe the App store is nearing the point where Apple can just walk away from AT&T or do whatever it wants. Eg MVNO. The trick will be to get corporate and business apps selling through the store. Then…. App store leverage could become interesting.

I always thought the Nokia stores filled with phones lacked the "browsing" / play experience that apple stores provide. With an expanded range of products a new retail strategy could emerge. It may even clean up the product line when the thinking becomes more about the experience, merchandising and service.

I'm still not sure how large it is. Still the experience looks interesting.

"The net (whether we're talking Web 2.0, Wikipedia, social networks or laptops) offers people the opportunity to build economies based on different rules — commerce that exists outside the economic map we have mistaken for the territory of human interaction.

We can startup and even scale companies with little or no money, making the banks and investment capital on which business once depended obsolete. That's the real reason for the so-called economic crisis: there is less of a market for the debt on which the top-heavy game is based. We can develop local and complementary currencies, barter networks, and other exchange systems independently of a central bank, and carry out secure transactions with our cell phones."

Just a wonderful set of notes posted via Michel Bauwens..

I'm not sure why we can't unlock an iPhone in the US when the contract is up. It frustrates me. So each time I leave the country I have to unlock it so I don't pay onerous ATT rates. I don't really care about jailbreaking although there are a couple of bonuses that could clearly appeal. For example use as a modem or enabling Skype over 3G. My guess is ATT would sell even more phones if they were less restrictive and more adaptive.

My biggest complaint about the US model is just lack of choice. We lack plan differentiation and the various regs mean we pay way more than we should . We can't buy the handsets that make sense instead the Carriers try to buy us off by discounting phones. Is it any wonder that we dislike our phone companies. My iPhone is out of contract! Why can't I unlock it?

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