LWN Update
Posted Nov 28, 2002 12:06 UTC (Thu) by
ekj (subscriber, #1524)
In reply to:
LWN Update by cyanide
Parent article:
LWN Update
Well, the values of the valutas really tell you nothing, the italian Lire for example is almost nothing worth, but this does not mean that Italy is a particularily poor country.
A more relevant notion is that of the GDP/capita, or the average income for each person in a country. If we look at this, then we see, for your examples:
- US: $36.300
- AUS: $24.000
- UK: $24.700
So it's real that LWN is a bit more expensive for the average Australian than for the average American, but the difference is not as large as you think. (all the numbers above are in US dollars, and according to the 2002 CIA world Factbook)
On the other hand there *is* many countries where the income is sufficiently much lower that it *does* make a big difference. I strongly suspect that Lwn has almost none, or none subscribing from these countries though, and I think that would be the case even with a much reducded price.
For example, the average income in China is about $4.300, or a factor of 8.5 under the US, so to a average person from China Lwn is more than 8 times as expensive as for the average American, expensive enough to be prohibitive. Worse yet if you are for example an average person from Benin (not that the average person from Benin would have internet-access or heard about Linux...), there the national average is $1040 a year, so Lwn would cost 36 times what it costs in the US.
I think it'd be too complicated to do much about this though, if Lwn really wanted to welcome aboard those from the poorer countries I would recommend something much simpler such as stating that subscription is free of charge for people from countries with per capita GDP less than say $10K. I doubt there'd be many takers for such an offer though.
(
Log in to post comments)