Brandi Dickinson
Mr. Reuter
Economics - B4
6 October 2015
Smartphones
Technology is all around us, and most of us use it everyday of our lives. From school to work, and mostly at home, technology is given to us to assist in things such as completing tasks and entertainment. One of the most used technology in our lives is the smartphone. Smartphones are addictive and used, by many people, every spare second of the day. Many kids in school would rather take the opportunity cost of texting or playing games rather than doing their homework or studying, which would cause them to have a worse grade in school, but what does that matter to them when they’re addicted to technology and could care less about math homework?
Besides the shell of a smart phone, which only costs a few bucks to put together, apps can be downloaded for free or for money. Clash of Clans, a popular app available on most mobile devices, brings in about $61,320,000 a year; and that’s just from one free app. Of course, these profits are made by a process called in app purchases, allowing the user to advance further for a couple dollars.. but that adds up. The marginal benefit for apps varies widely from person to person, depending on how much money they are willing to spend, if any at all, for in app purchases. The marginal cost may also differ, since some people are willing to spend more, and some less. For example, you’re playing a farming game. You plant some carrots, but you see they won’t be done for 7 real time hours. Seeing that you have to go to bed soon, you could either wait for them to grow overnight, or fertilize them now with fertilizer you can buy for $1 in the app. To some people, they would rather wait; but to others, $1 is an insanely low price to pay to get those carrots now. If you do choose to spend the money and get the fertilizer, a trade-off is then made; you now get to have some carrots, while app creators now have more money in turn of that.
Just as people are willing to pay real life money for apps, there are many people that are even willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars just to stand in line for countless hours, even days, just to get the latest smartphone on the same day it was released. Samsung, A smartphone company, made 7.4 billion dollars in profit for selling 56.3 million smartphones in the third quarter of their phone launch. Can you imagine how much of that was made within the first 24 hours?
When it all comes down to it, smartphones and their insane prices are really based on what’s optimal in your eyes. You could buy that app if you really want it and it will kill time, or you could just get the free version of it if you’re unsure and don’t think it’s really worth buying. No matter what you do, smartphones will always rank in big money for the creators, and have a huge impact on our economy.
Kaiser, Tiffany. "DailyTech - Samsung Reports $7.4 Billion Profit, Sells 56.3 Million Phones." DailyTech - Samsung Reports $7.4 Billion Profit, Sells 56.3 Million Phones. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.
Starkell, Natasha. "How Much Money Top 50 Free Mobile Apps Actually Make." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.
Dawson, Jan. "What We Learned at I/O about Google’s App Revenue."Beyond Devices. N.p., 25 June 2014. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.
You can really see how an iPhone affects our day-to-day life, that including the amount of time when we spend on them. We miss so much of our lives now because most of it is spent on our phones instead of enjoying the real world. A lot of time that could be spent to be bettering yourself or making money is usually now spent on procrastination
ReplyDeleteI agree that most teens would rather spend time using their phone than doing math homework and also that they would end up getting bad grades if they didn't do their homework. But you can't just focus on the negative things for buyers and also have to look on the positive side as well. For some people they may not complete their homework and would text on their phone but some may use their phone to their advantage. If they have a question they can look up the answer on their phone or text a friend and ask for help. A phone can be a good thing and a bad thing but it all depends on who it is and what their intent is when using this device.
ReplyDeleteVery true, many smartphones and apps do quite well in today's technology based market. As time goes on these trends will only continue to increase as population rises and more and more people buy the phones. Some people are even replacing their land-lines and replacing them with another cell phone or simply using their personal phone as a home phone as well to save money. On the other hand, are we trading personal interaction with technology and saving money? If this trend continues, will it really be worth it?
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ReplyDeleteI agree because the iphone has affected our outside lives by a lot and will still affect us. This shows that we spend money stuff we really don't need in our life most of the stuff we can live without.
ReplyDeleteSmart phones have become more and more crucial to everyday activities. Almost anything and everything can be linked or controlled by your smartphone (fridge, tv, home security, banking, etc) As time progresses, I can only see this trend increasing as more and more people cave to the ways of everyone else, and everyday I see more kids playing on ipads, ipods, and even iphones. Now that it has become more available, more people can get it, and now that it is being more widely used, more people are willing to pay for it. It seems like nowadays technology isn't really an advancement, but the norm and if you don't have it, you're kind of left behind. My question is if this is really the path that will pay off in the long run, or if we will all just end up like the people in Wall-E.
ReplyDeleteI don't think smart phones are necessarily addictive, yes you will see children with their pone 24/7 but with the advancements of smart phones, they are becoming more useful. I do however think that people are addictive to the name brands of their phone which is why thousands of people will wait in like for 3 hours and spend $700 just for the new iPhone. It was an interesting blog overall!
ReplyDeleteI think this idea really traps consumers, I have also done this where your playing a game and you need more lives to complete the game or do better but you have to buy the lives in order to do so. So you become addicted to the game and before you know it your shelling out 20$ on a free app. I feel as though app creates who use do that make more money than those who charge money for the actual app you download.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is a huge deal in our society today and I think people can get addicted to their smart phones since some people or teenagers are on them all the time due to texting, social media, and other games that they might be playing. Even little kids now a days have their own ipods or ipads. I have always wondered how companies that make the free apps on the app store actually get money since you don't have to pay anything to download it, but I guess I didn't realize the people that play the game actually can be serious about it and spend money on the carrots like you said. Which is true since so many people may have that game.
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