Why Does Asia Get All the Cool Stuff First?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2004/12/09/gadgetgap.DTL&type=tech' target='_blank'>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...p.DTL&type=tech</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Cell phones that do everything but make toast (although appropriate attachments are probably available from third-party accessory vendors). Gigapixel digital cameras. Laptops so tiny that "My dog ate my homework" is once again a valid excuse. And, of course, the most incredible toilets in the history of humankind. Some of these devices eventually plod over to U.S. shores months or even years after they've become obsolete in Japan. But many never arrive here at all. Why is it that Japanese manufacturers (and, increasingly, those in Korea and China as well) have such a death grip on consumer-electronics cool? And why are Americans deprived of the choicest fruits of this technological bounty? The answers to these questions offer an intriguing look at how culture shapes technology -- and vice versa."</i><br /><br />This is a fascinating article - if you're ever wondered why Asian markets routinely get the cool technology first, this article answers that question. It's a mix of cultural, economic, and infrastructure issues - and after reading this article, I'm left with the distinct impression that this is an issue that won't be changing in the next 50 years.

[emuelle1]

It's amazing. When I was in the Navy, we'd go to Hong Kong or Singapore and find stuff that may never make it to the US. Of course, there's a lot of pirated stuff there too.

There are a lot of cultural factors, but on top of it our tax and regulatory systems don't exactly inspire innovation and often drive it away.

[Darius Wey]

I love going tech shopping in Asian countries. I recently purchased the Casio Exilim Pro EX-P700 camera in Singapore. Exchange rates and all, it translated to A$550 with two bonus camera cases, a spare battery, a tripod and a 256MB SD card. Amazon, OTOH, sell it for US$599.99 without any extras. That translates to around A$800. Not only are all the crazy gadgets there, they're cheaper too! Suits me. They're close to where I live. :P

[possmann]

Veyr interesting article... I cannot help it but to agree with the author about the US culture - we are a walmart world and we, the consumers, certainly do not drive innovation and technology changes here in the US (sigh).

[felixdd]

Also notice that the Americas are far behind even Europe in tech adoption (just look at BT and cellphone tech).

Bottom line...we North Americans are a conservative bunch

[wolwol]

trust me, people in asia are nuts about gadgets....
and fyi, nokia communicator's sales in indonesia *hey, its part of asia right ;)* makes up about 70% of the global sales, hence the global launch of the nokia 9500 was held in indonesia :lol:

[wolwol]

Also notice that the Americas are far behind even Europe in tech adoption (just look at BT and cellphone tech).

Bottom line...we North Americans are a conservative bunch

and americans only realized the beauty of sms *no idea why they called it text messaging here...i guess its easier for the conservative to churn out the meaning* and picture messaging less than a year ago....
go figure

[Jason Dunn]

Also notice that the Americas are far behind even Europe in tech adoption (just look at BT and cellphone tech). Bottom line...we North Americans are a conservative bunch

With mobile phones though, you have to keep in mind that it's a factor of carriers and coverage and not just culture: the carriers haven't blanketed North America in coverage because there's so much land mass to cover, and thus it's too expensive...the result is that mobile phones aren't as popular over here, because there are still many places where they don't work. It's a chicken/egg scenario, and in Europe and elsewhere in the world it's been solved much faster than in North America...

[wolwol]

Also notice that the Americas are far behind even Europe in tech adoption (just look at BT and cellphone tech). Bottom line...we North Americans are a conservative bunch

With mobile phones though, you have to keep in mind that it's a factor of carriers and coverage and not just culture: the carriers haven't blanketed North America in coverage because there's so much land mass to cover, and thus it's too expensive...the result is that mobile phones aren't as popular over here, because there are still many places where they don't work. It's a chicken/egg scenario, and in Europe and elsewhere in the world it's been solved much faster than in North America...

and also, americans are so used with term of free mobile phones, which is another reason why they aren't introducing high end mobile phones here in the states, only this year onwards they're beginning to launch exotic phones here *well, seriously, its kinda rare here in the states* such as cingular offering of motorola RAZR V3 and the recently launched SIEMENS SX66, which is basically PDA2k in its unbranded state.

http://onlinestoref.cingular.com/images/Phones/pho_sie_sx66_large.jpg

[emuelle1]

"We're much more Wal-Mart," says Carnegie-Mellon's David J. Farber ruefully. "We buy our electronics from big-box stores where the salespeople know nothing about what they're selling -- they know how to swipe a credit card, and that's it."

There is so much truth to that. When my son was born, since I live far away, my mom offerred to buy us a video camera. I admit, I didn't do the research that I should have. With a newborn and the lack of sleep, I just couldn't sit down and spend hours reading about something that's not my specialty. My mom flew up here and we went to, where else? Wal-mart. I figured I could talk her into also buying me a DVD-burner so we settled on the Panasonic PV-GS9. It had a USB hookup, so I figured that it would be easy to transfer the DV movies to my computer and burn them to DVD to send to my mom. I spent weeks worth of free time trying to figure out how to do it. Windows XP would not recognize the camera no matter how many times I installed the driver from Panasonic's website.

We finally broke down and returned it. We figured that we should check the camera shop in the mall. They didn't know anything about the DV cameras, and didn't have the one we wanted in stock. We finally broke down and went to Best Buy (I avoid it because, like everything else in South Jersey, it's in a very bad location traffic wise and getting out of the parking lot is a serious pain). At Best Buy, where they actually had someone who knew what he was talking about, we ended up buying the exact same camera because it turned out that we needed firewire. Of course, you can't expect Wal-Mart or the mall camera shop to know that.

Anyway, it works. But we still institutionally gravitate to Wal-mart first.

It's also true that in America, nobody takes risks anymore. Every decision is made based on focus groups and polls, from the Presidential pets (Seriously, Clinton took a poll before he got Buddy the dog) to TV shows to candy packaging. If it won't pass a focus group, it won't happen here.

[Phoenix]

I love going tech shopping in Asian countries. I recently purchased the Casio Exilim Pro EX-P700 camera in Singapore. Exchange rates and all, it translated to A$550 with two bonus camera cases, a spare battery, a tripod and a 256MB SD card. Amazon, OTOH, sell it for US$599.99 without any extras. That translates to around A$800. Not only are all the crazy gadgets there, they're cheaper too! Suits me. They're close to where I live. :P

That is crazy. Those people get it. Wish it were like that here.

It really is too bad that consumers don't drive things as much here. Real shame. That's the way it should be.

These corporations here need to wake up. But the chance of that happening is slim or slow. 50 years is probably right. How long does it take to change the perspectives and behaviors of society and industry?

The article was a good read. Makes a person wonder why kids over there are so much more into tech than here. That is, what fueled their interest in tech more than other things? Lack of space indeed helped (Mother of Invention and so on), but I wonder if that was the primary aspect. If we had a space issue here, would it be enough to significantly increase our interest in technology?

Apart from space issues, what causes certain people to take more interest in electronics, while others take more of an interest in clothes, shoes, or something else?

[Phoenix]

...It's also true that in America, nobody takes risks anymore. Every decision is made based on focus groups and polls, from the Presidential pets (Seriously, Clinton took a poll before he got Buddy the dog) to TV shows to candy packaging. If it won't pass a focus group, it won't happen here.

I'd agree that's one of the biggest problems that stifles and slows things. People act like they can't think critically anymore. It's as if they have no instincts, or they don't trust them anyway.

Companies spend millions of dollars on "studies", or analysis and focus-groups, when half of us could tell them exactly what to do, for free. Then they could take all that money and use it to actually develop good products. Case in point: Motorola MPx.

It makes me wonder if companies, hypothetically, just began making really advanced products regardless (in other words, began offering the same type of products you see in Japan whether the masses were asking for it or not), if it would really spark a serious interest in technology. Sometimes I think that if people never get exposed to much of it, they don't know any better and there's little to motivate them to want the kind of innovation we see in Japan in the first place. Out of sight, out of mind.

I don't think people don't want it. We're just simply not exposed to it. I think people here would ultimately be just as tech hungry as any other place if companies would take some risks and really start innovating and introducing these products here.

Makes me think I should live in Japan. Innovative, progressive, risk-taking. Sounds like a good place for me.

[guinness]

I always figured it's because electronics aren't made in the US anymore: TV's, digital cameras, cell phones, PDA's, etc. They may have American companies designing them (or at least use their label), but nothing is made here.

The Wal-Mart mentality works though too; if it's cheap and at least functions, it's good enough for most people.

[ctmagnus]

I'm seriously considering relocating outside North America.

[LarDude]

I used to travel to Japan quite frequently for work and, of course, never missed an opportunity to visit Akihabara. I remember asking this same question about why they seemed to be so much better off than us gadget-wise. The answer I got was similar to what the author of the article alluded to: real estate prices. The high real estate prices affect BOTH the affordability of housing and cars (a parking spot at your apartment would be outrageously expensive).

Now consider North America, by the time most of us hit the age of say, 21, *not* owning a car is almost inconceivable (mind you, their more advanced public transport system also helps). This is then usually followed by the purchase of a house. Imagine the disposable income you'd have left over if you didn't have to pay off these "2 big-ticket items". You'd have a "spending vacuum" and would have to "look" for things to spend your money on (eating out, stock market, and gadgets).

It is also interesting to note that the fervor/enthusiam extends to many other consumer items, even ones that I would not consider particularly high-tech, such as televisions, coffee-makers, shavers, and even rice-cookers. (Well, I suppose you could consider them high-tech because their rice-cookers usually came with fuzzy-logic capabilities built-in, but I'd almost consider that "a solution looking for a problem"). One of my Japanese friends pointed out to me that they tend to change their TV's quite often, and the old TV is just brought out and left on the street for anyone to take.

Do we suffer from a gadget-deficit? Definitely! Would I like to give up any hope of owning a home, and giving up that second family car (or heck, even owning a first car -- and not just in Japan, the same is true in, say, Hong Kong)? Nope! Besides, I personally look forward to going to the "gadget-town" areas when I'm in the Far East -- what would be the point, if we had "gadget-parity".

[Kati Compton]

Even with recent improvements on the geek chic front, it's still considered "less cool" most places to be a tech geek, particularly early on in school. That probably has a lot to do with it. Peer pressure just takes a different direction.

It'll be interesting to see that, as the Japanese schoolgirls grow up, if adult women in Japanese culture remain a strong force in technology marketing, or if it will still center on the youth.

[ipaq_wannabe]

at least you guys get the PocketPCs first - it takes a couple months before some PocketPCs get released here in Japan...

and there are even some models (like the 720 Loox, for example - even though it is half-Fujitsu) never even make it to our shores...

i would say that there a good and bad points in being at both sides of the Pacific...

[robert_biggs]

I was in the eletronics district of Tokyo in May and saw a ton of amazing stuff. On the train, I saw one guy with a laptop running Windows XP that was roughly 6" x 5 " with a full keyboard (had to use your thumbs of course). I'm just starting to see a few of the cameras and portable DVD players that I saw there starting to show up here in the U.S. as brand new. The cell phones there are amazing! A friend of mine has a 2-megapixel camera and QVGA screen on his cell phone. And it only cost him around $200 USD. When it comes to technology, the U.S. is pathetic. :(

[Typhoon]

American competitors either "suck" or don't care.

[emuelle1]

In America, as well, most people just keep doing what they're doing. They'll spend the money on a huge TV and entertainment center, but how often do you hear "I don't understand any of that computer stuff!" Most people in America are intimidated by computers. I show off my ipaq all the time and explain to people how much information and functionality I can carry around with me in such a small package, and I get a blank stare. I think that Americans tend to buy technology for utility and for convenience, not for the "geek chic". That, or they buy it for the "keep up with Jones" factor.

I, of course, think that is tragic.

[Typhoon]

at least you guys get the PocketPCs first - it takes a couple months before some PocketPCs get released here in Japan...

and there are even some models (like the 720 Loox, for example - even though it is half-Fujitsu) never even make it to our shores...

i would say that there a good and bad points in being at both sides of the Pacific...

really? I didn't know that...

[ipaq_wannabe]

at least you guys get the PocketPCs first - it takes a couple months before some PocketPCs get released here in Japan...

and there are even some models (like the 720 Loox, for example - even though it is half-Fujitsu) never even make it to our shores...

i would say that there a good and bad points in being at both sides of the Pacific...

really? I didn't know that...

yes, we i was back in LA about a couple of weeks ago - the hp4700, the Axims, etc. were already on-sale, and it much "old news"

however, when i got back to Japan - they're just "scheduled to be released soon"... while some have "no plans on releasing to japan"...

[LarDude]

Most people in America are intimidated by computers. I show off my ipaq all the time and explain to people how much information and functionality I can carry around with me in such a small package, and I get a blank stare. I think that Americans tend to buy technology for utility and for convenience, not for the "geek chic". That, or they buy it for the "keep up with Jones" factor.

I, of course, think that is tragic.

Most people everywhere (not only in America) are intimidated by computers. And yet, adoption of PCs is rather high in North America (and elsewhere in the world). And yet the same is not true for PDAs. Could the "blank stares" you're getting be due to them wondering "Why...?"? If we could forget "geek chic" for just a moment, perhaps the PDA has yet to "really deliver" on the hype (OK, I apologize in advance for potentially opening a whole new can of worms). The tepid response to PDAs is probably because the North American public does not view them as being "compelling or vital" enough (as opposed to the PC itself) and, instead, still views PDAs as being only a "curiosity". A point of view which I've been finding myself forced to consider, more and more, this last year and a half.

Even though I've had a PocketPC since the first iPAQ came out, I must confess that I've been disappointed with the slow progress and the fact that my (or any other) PocketPC still "doesn't do enough". My e805 only does 2 things better than my PC: PIM and MP3s. (Don't get me wrong, I use my PocketPC for lots of things: Mapopolis, email, web-browsing, ftp, spreadsheets, pdf-viewing,...etc, but the functionality is still kind of "lame", and so, I still can't throw out my PC yet). I had very high expectations for the platform, but it still has yet to "deliver". Perhaps, en masse, John Q Public is wiser than we give them credit for.

[Darius Wey]

yes, we i was back in LA about a couple of weeks ago - the hp4700, the Axims, etc. were already on-sale, and it much "old news"

however, when i got back to Japan - they're just "scheduled to be released soon"... while some have "no plans on releasing to japan"...

Because the iPAQ 9000 and the Axim X100 are to be released soon... :lol:

[maximus]

I think the article just plain wrong. I feel exactly the other way around.

I live in asia for half of my age, and in this period of time I consistently have to envy friends who live in canada/US/europe.

This is my argument :

1. XDA3 -- Never seen one in asia yet.
2. mpx220 -- Seen two units at a blackmarket import shop, guess where do they import them from ?
3. Axim X50V -- dell.com.sg is updated approximately 1 month after dell.com or dell.com.ca
4. Sigma SD9 ... there is a 8 months time lag between europe and singapore. SD10 is even worse, 9 months time lag.
5. IPOD ... 6 months time lag.

[Bajan Cherry]

This article does not apply to where I live - India, which believe it or not, is in Asia. And believe it or not, Asia spans beyond your usual China, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia etc. That said, I recall being in London couple of years back and decided to go tech-shopping. I could not find any bluetooth devices in any of the shops, Dixons included. Then I contacted my friend in US, who just popped to the neighborhood shop and bought what I was looking for.

[hornetfig]

With mobile phones though, you have to keep in mind that it's a factor of carriers and coverage and not just culture: the carriers haven't blanketed North America in coverage because there's so much land mass to cover, and thus it's too expensive...the result is that mobile phones aren't as popular over here, because there are still many places where they don't work. It's a chicken/egg scenario, and in Europe and elsewhere in the world it's been solved much faster than in North America...

That is not entirely supported in fact. In Australia the problem of land mass and population density is infinitely wose than the USA and significantly worse than Canada. GSM coverage consists of major cities, regional centres and major highway routes. CDMA coverage includes less major towns. Yet there is something like 12 million mobile phones in Australia, selling at the rate of 4 million per year, with a total population of only 20 million. . .

[emuelle1]

It occurred to me that we also have to live with the fear of obsolescense. It seems that as soon as you buy something, the next model is released and you find that you don't have *all* the functionality that you now could have. Plus, your $500 model is not work about $350 on Ebay while the new one costs more.

That might be why more people don't get into tech in America.

[hsharma]

My take is lot of adoption in NA also depends upon wireless technologies standards! In the US there is split between CDMA and GSM and there is no interoperability. Hence less motivation/money for complete wireless saturation of the landmass. Also when software driven radio becomes a mature/available technology, one could probably see devices where you simply add one more radio frequency via a software subscription rather than a new device. That along with carrier interoperability arrangements could help. For now we simply twiddle thumbs seeing the Asians use the cool stuff and sigh!!! my 2 cents!

[Daimaou]

This article really do not relfect the Situation in Asia. I lived in China and now in Japan for over 6 years... and well even if this article is pointing some interesting point on Japanese or asian behaviour reality is a bt different.

There are a lot of difference between Japan and the rest of the world for exemple. Japanese just discover what BT is.... where USA and EUR use it since 4 years now. There are no Smartphones in Japan, Mobile phones here are jsut good to play Java games and taking picture, don't ask them to surf the web their browser do not support HTML or regular web, you cannot also send email using other things that your Mobile Phone ISP email, No POP or SMTP support on mobile phones.

I think that this article mix everything, Asia is one thing, but you can say that Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo are the same, you will be supprise that Korea look MUCH more like HongKong there was 10 years ago than Tokyo.

[Phoenix]

This article really do not relfect the Situation in Asia. I lived in China and now in Japan for over 6 years... and well even if this article is pointing some interesting point on Japanese or asian behaviour reality is a bt different.

There are a lot of difference between Japan and the rest of the world for exemple. Japanese just discover what BT is.... where USA and EUR use it since 4 years now. There are no Smartphones in Japan, Mobile phones here are jsut good to play Java games and taking picture, don't ask them to surf the web their browser do not support HTML or regular web, you cannot also send email using other things that your Mobile Phone ISP email, No POP or SMTP support on mobile phones.

I think that this article mix everything, Asia is one thing, but you can say that Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo are the same, you will be supprise that Korea look MUCH more like HongKong there was 10 years ago than Tokyo.

Hmm. Interesting. Now I'm thinking to myself that perhaps I was premature with some of my thoughts./feelings regarding all of this. But then again, how could I help that? I read one article and I've never been to Japan. But it's interesting to me to read all these different persectives regarding Japan and technology.

I suppose the cliche, "it's always greener on the other side of the fence", applies here. They have some things we don't, and vice versa.

Of course, I do have to say that although I would consider living in other countries down the road for a time, I love my country and would never leave it permanently.

The positive side of things here is that we don't have to upgrade as often to have the latest tech. We upgrade often enough (sometimes too often with certain things) as far as I'm concerned, but it would be even worse over there. So my desire is not about wanting upgrades more often, but wanting to see more sophistication in devices when they are upgraded.

Although I'd like to see consumers have more direct input in regard to technological development, after considering things more, I would bet that we have more say than what we might initially think.

It's clear that many people here don't adopt certain things very quickly, but there's a fair amount here that we get first before everyone else.

I'd like to see us strike a bit more of what I'd call a balance with technological innovation. Greater sophistication, more choices, with more attention to developing and defending standards, without having to upgrade too often. But then again, this is the holy grail, isn't it?

For now, I'll just ask for a bit more sophistication with innovation, but apart from that, be more content with what we do have. After all, we have quite a bit.

But of course, we can't be too content, otherwise, we stop innovating. :wink: We all have something to offer and there's pros and cons with everything.

But it's always about balance, isn't it?

[andyclap]

I'd have to agree with most of Daimaou's comments. I had a holiday in Japan in October, and was expecting a visit to Akahabara in Tokyo to be one of the highlights. Apart from the fridges with special daikon compartments, none of the technology was particularly different or any cheaper than that available in Europe.

Except for the mobile phones - now daimaou say they're not smartphones, however they looked pretty fully featured to me, from what I could see peering over peoples shoulders on the chikatetsu (very rude, I know). But yes, the Japanese use them mainly for texting, so email etc may not be supported.

I have a theory that the reason Japan is no longer so uniquely gadget obsessed is that they've reached the end of the road and have converged on their mobile phones. Digicam/video camera ->phone; PDA -> phone; GPS Mapping (and man, do you need this in a country without streetnames!) -> phone. Browser (albeit cut-down) -> phone, etc, etc.

The only problem for me was of course Japanese mobile phones don't work anywhere except Japan, so Akahabara was pretty disappointing.

I think people are possibly missing the point with many of the super-cool Japanese tech they see on the web: The majority of these are usually prototypes, and never reach the mass market.

[frankenbike]

As mentioned, a lot of the reason we aren't good consumer spenders has a lot to do with population density. Low population density and lack of a centralized city centers on average in the US makes massive public transportation a near impossibility, so owning a car is a near necessity. From what I've seen, the entire country outside dense North Eastern cities is following a "Los Angeles Model": small cities surrounding large cities becoming job centers in their own right, creating a suburb to suburb commute. Without a fully gridded urban commuter rail situation (and most cities, upon installing rail systems tend to make them spoked suburb to city center lines, rather than suburb to suburb grids), that car is an unavoidable expense.

And this is driven by the "American Dream" (which has spread to other countries) of home ownership. For young families, this has forced them further and further away from city centers. For most middle class Americans, the idea of spending a lifetime throwing out money on rent rather than the same amount of money going to real estate ownership which is something that tends to grow in value as well as being a saleable asset in the future, is a concept that is ingrained on us from early childhood.

Couple all that with a need for the urban middle class to spend money on private school rather than put their children at risk in urbanized public schools, with violence, gangs and other results of mixed economic student bodies, and all of this adds up to far less disposable income. The threshold at which most families think children are spoiled by consumerist acquisitions is far lower. As well, most middle class families commit a significant amount of disposable income to retirement investments.

A few years ago, it was a big issue that Americans weren't saving enough in bank accounts. Then studies found out that the reason for that was that they were investing that money (directly, in IRAs or through 401Ks) rather than putting it in the bank. All this money has the net effect of reducing available spending for disposable technology.

We're also ingrained with the psychology of "value". That doesn't necessarily mean "cheap", but it means that if something large that's used a lot, like a big TV or home computer, costs $600, something small that isn't as useful like a PDA for a similar amount of money isn't as good a value.

This makes the success of something like iPods a mystery. And demand for iPods is very brand specific. It doesn't translate to equivalent success for the less expensive yet just as capable devices like the Dell DJ.

Most Americans also grew up with the idea that you keep a TV until the old one fails. Which can take a decade or more. It's hard to move from that to spending $400 or more every year or two on a tech toy.

Throw all this in with pervasive anti-intellectualism in the US, which is particularly strong among adolescents, and it isn't hard to figure out why a lot of cutting edge technology is a hard sell here. If you're too far ahead of the curve in personal technology, you're definitely a geek. Geeks are to be reviled and dismissed. Only when something geek is considered chic by the rap culture (which usually starts with the local drug peddlers using it, followed by rap stars), then it makes it's way into the general teenage market.

This leads to a counter-intuitive marketing strategy for consumer tech: you have to get the ghetto communities to endorse technology before teens will accept it, and that usually means selling to the people who the whole country has labeled the bad buys in American culture: the drug dealers and rap stars.

When it comes down to it, tech companies are doomed to banging their head against the wall if they want to market directly to the young, white middle class. That's probably why they go for marketing tech to business first, and middle class consumers as an afterthought.

Sure, there are plenty of counter examples. iPods first went to the Mac Heads (you couldn't even hook them up to a PC at first) who will buy almost everything made by Apple because their almost a persecuted minority of their own. And Apple has made a mission of selling products to the techno-phobic. But they've also had spectacular failures (like the Newton). Middle class teenage girls adopting computers into their lives because of chat rooms (a way of compensating for low neighborhood population density, and the awkwardness of teenage bonding and social hierarchies).

I'm actually pretty amazed by the broad adaptation of cell phones with a lot of gizmos in them. I'm seeing a lot of T-Mobile Sidekicks around, even though T-Mobile has some of the worst cell coverage around. But it's not as broad as Japan. Just broad for the US market.

What it all comes down to is this: in the US, we don't just buy stuff because it exists. We buy stuff because it's either useful or fills some social need. Teens and young adults with disposable income (e.g. they live with their parents) are only going to buy something that impresses other teens or young adults in their social circle. They aren't going to be the first on the block to break new technological ground, because a misstep in that direction can actually hurt their social status.

I'm not young. But my social and work circle encompasses people much younger than me. I'm very conscious of what carrying a Pocket PC looks like to them, though a lot of the time I don't really care. If I pull it out for some reason, I'm in the position of selling it to them, it isn't an item of automatic envy (though I think it should be ;) ). If all the features that make a PPC cool were ubiquitous, like free WiFi wherever you went, selling it to them would be a no-brainer. Internet Radio would be a reality. Internet television wherever you went would be a reality. But as it is, we don't have that, and the real benefits of PPC ownership are beyond the practical grasp of most of the younger people who would make excellent consumers.

Younger people don't like to throw their smaller disposable incomes away. They don't want to gamble on owning something that isn't going to catch on or make them look like geeks (and that goes back through most of the past century, where previous incarnations of the term included "milktoasts" and "eggheads"). They don't want to own something that will become orphaned.