How The Bottom Dropped Out Of The Educational Software Market
from the so-many-alternatives dept
With so much attention being placed on children's learning aids these days, you might think that educational software would be booming. Apparently, you'd be wrong. In the last five years or so, the bottom has completely dropped out of the educational software market. While the articles points to a number of factors to "blame" (free online resources, more non-PC learning gadgets, families that pass a game down from older kids to younger kids, greater use of computers in schools making them less necessary at home, etc.), the real blame has to go to those making educational software who failed to see the market shifting out from under them. These days, anyone selling packaged software has to see both the risk and the opportunity that the web presents -- and to not embrace is shows a lack of planning, rather than something that was unavoidable.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
By Value - not by Unit
From the article: "In 2000, sales of educational software for home computers reached $498 million ... By 2004, sales of educational software ... had plummeted to $152 million, according to the NPD Group ... What happened was an explosion of new, often free technologies competing to entertain and teach children."
For people who believe in Free and Open Source Software, this is a very good thing as it shows kids that you don't have to pay to get good programs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]