From: Billy Brown (bbrown@transcient.com)
Date: Tue Feb 29 2000 - 09:56:33 MST
Brian Atkins wrote:
> Billy Brown wrote:
> > Why should we expect this to work better than simply giving them the
money
> > we would have spent on the gadgets?
>
> I don't know about you, but I've made far more money with my computer
> than I think I could ever make if someone had instead handed me $1k
> and I had no net access. The value of having net access is overwhelmingly
> huge for the individuals capable of using it to their advantage.
For you, the computer would be the way to go. For someone else, with
different skills and a different personal situation (for instance, an
illiterate peasant farmer), some other tool might be more useful. The nice
thing about money is that I don't have to figure out which option is best
for someone else - I give you the money, and you buy whatever will do you
the most good.
The appeal of the computer-distribution scheme comes from the idea that you
can give away computers for less than it would cost the beneficiaries to buy
them with cash. That doesn't seem realistic to me.
Billy Brown
bbrown@transcient.com
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