The Five Dollar Comparison

Nov 19, 2008

Photos above taken from the fivedollarcomparson.org site - they make more sense with the notes posted here

You're on your way to meet up with friends and only realise after 5 minutes that you've left your mobile phone at home - what do you do? If you're like me you mutter a curse under your breath, retrace your steps and retrieve your phone. But what the cost of obtaining a new phone was radically different than today, what if you could pick up a new phone at the convenience store or from a vending machine for only $5 - and painlessly sync your contacts and other personal data from the network? Now what would you do?

Today over half the world's population has a mobile phone, and for the remaining 3.3 billion cost is the primary barrier to personal ownership. Advances in technology and manufacturing allow us to imagine a world where the price of a mobile phone is significantly lower than today, and the spread of low cost personal connectivity will continue to have a profound impact on the world around us: maybe for you it becomes a device that is disposable on a whim; whereas for someone else it provides access to a personal bank account for the first time.

To help us understand relative value of things and explore the consequences of that value my colleagues plus plus have started by asking a simple question: what can you buy for the equivilent of five dollars?. We've been sharing our photos online at fivedollarcomparison.org and now we invite you do to the same. It's easy - instructions for uploading your own photos are here.

The photo above? One of a kind auto-rickshaw mud flaps from our recent Ahmedabad study priced at only 250 rupees - five dollars.

And given the sensitivity of the subject matter - a reminder that all the material on Future Perfect is a personal opinion, bears no relation to actual products or services from my employer.

Location:
 India »  Ahmedabad Keywords:
 connectivity | fivedollarcomparison | Nokia | team