Saturday, July 09, 2011

Video: Consumer Surplus From Internet and Mobile Technology

Consumer surplus, according to Wikipedia.org, is the "difference between the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay and the actual price they do pay. If a consumer would be willing to pay more than the current asking price, then they are getting more baenefit from the purchased product than they spent to buy it they are getting more benefit from the purchased product than they spent to buy it." (italics added; hat tip Professor Russ Roberts)



The video shows how people tend to see consumer surplus from modern technology powerful enough for them to 'refuse' a ($1 million) monetary offer in exchange for withdrawing access to these technologies. [my guess is that polls aren't taken seriously]

Yet, ironically, the same people in the video would wait for falling prices from new innovative products in order to adapt to them.

Also, the video shows the vital role played by the "rich" in the diffusion of these newly discovered technologies into society, or how the rich, as buyers of the first order, creates incentives for producers to mass produce for widespread use.

The beauty of laissez faire capitalism.

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