Re: don't forget the subject here. my 2c worth

[mjmahon@aol.com (MJMahon)]

This thread has made me curious about the size of the Apple II
market.

Many posts over the last few months, and perusal of the A2
marketplace newsgroup suggest that hardware and software
are going for very low prices.  This suggests that there is little
demand (with occasional--rare--exceptions).

Joe Kohn says he has over 1000 subscribers (I'm one), so
there may be as many as 10000-20000 worldwide users of
Apple II equipment who have any interest in or awareness
of ways to improve their systems or add to their software
set.  I would be surprised if more than 10% of these users
actually spent more than $50 per year on Apple II-related
goods.  So a _very_ rough estimate of total market size
might be $50,000 per year.

This isn't bad for a 20-year-old platform that is "dead" by
any reasonable measure, but it certainly isn't enough to
put bread on the table unless it is all going to one person!

I would be very interested in hearing from some of the
"commercial interests" in the Apple II world, to get a more
realistic idea of what the market is actually like, and how
much revenue (forget profit  ;-) is actually being derived
from it, and by how many.

I believe that the likely motivations for anyone developing
new code for our quaint little machines are very few:

   1) The sheer joy of bits running through the brain;
   2) Showing off in public (always fun ;-);
   3) Sharing ones irrational love for the wonderful; or
   4) Making some money.

I suggest that, in light of the above estimate, motivation 4)
cannot be a very strong factor for very many people--only
perhaps for a _very_ few.  All other contributors to the
Apple II world must be primarily motivated by some
combination of 1) through 3).

If this is the case (Are you still with me?), then we should
note that the total collapse of the economic Apple II market
would, in fact, jeopardize the motivations (probably not the
livelihoods) of only a handful of people.  And since the
majority of the current contributions to the community are
being made by the much larger number of people who are
not primarily motivated by 4), such a total market collapse
would not be a major inconvenience for the Apple II
community (since its size is already negligible, and it is
a negligible motivator of creative contributors).

It is also interesting to note that the concept of "stealing" a
contribution only applies in the case of motivations 2) and 4).
In the case of 2) it would mean "stealing the credit"; and in
the case of  4), it means "stealing the revenue".

Since almost everyone would prefer the original, credited
work to a hacked-up version, it would seem that there is
little reason (not _no_ reason!) to fear thievery against
motivation 2).

We are then left with only one motivation type, 4), which
can be plundered.  But by the reasoning above, there cannot
be significant monetary loss, since the market is so small.
(Surely, none of us imagines that we could make a contribution
to the Apple II community which is so great that it would
cause the size of the market to grow significantly!)

So what exactly is all the fuss about?  The remaining
Apple II community will go on, one way or another,
when the size of its market cannot support _anyone_
economically.  Indeed, to many it seems that it is
already so--most particularly those former purveyors
of Apple gear who have been dropping like flies for
years.

Sooner and not later, there will be no "Apple II business",
and we will have to get on with it--trading ideas, giving
help, sharing whatever we can to nurture our interest
motivated by 1), 2), and 3), after motivation 4) is only
a memory.

Then I hope we will be, as a community, less judgemental
and more willing to share our "intellectual property" with
any for whom it has value, knowing that our reward was
in 1) creating it, 2) taking credit for it, and 3) sharing it.

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/