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A new housing boom
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney October 12, 2012: 1:01 PM ET
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The long-battered housing market is finally starting to get back on its feet. But some experts believe it could soon become another housing boom.
Signs of recovery have been evident in the recent pick ups in home prices, home sales and construction. Foreclosures are also down and the Federal Reserve has acted to push mortgage rates near record lows.
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But while many economists believe this emerging housing recovery will produce only slow and modest improvement in home prices, construction and jobs, others believe the rebound will be much stronger.
Barclays Capital put out a report recently forecasting that home prices, which fell by more than a third after the housing bubble burst in 2007, could be back to peak levels as soon as 2015.
"In our view, the housing market had undergone a dramatic over-correction during the prior five years, resulting in pent-up demand for housing purchases that would spark a rapid rise in housing starts," said Stephen Kim, an analyst with Barclays, in a note to clients.
In addition to what Kim sees as a big rebound in building, he's bullish on home prices, expecting rises of 5% to 7.5% a year.
Related: Where housing is most (and least) affordable
Construction is expected to be even stronger, with numerous experts forecasting home construction to grow by at least 20% a year for each of the next two years. Some believe building could be back near the pre-bubble average of about 1.5 million new homes a year by 2016, about double the 750,000 homes expected this year.
"We think the recovery is for real this time around," said Rick Palacios, senior analyst with John Burns Real Estate Consulting. "If you look across the U.S. economy right now, there are only a handful of industries looking at 20-30% growth over the next 4-5 years, and housing is one of those."
Home builder stocks are up 162% in the last 12 months, led by a 250% jump at PulteGroup (PHM). Other leading builders including DR Horton (DHI), Toll Brothers (TOL), KB Home (KBH) and Lennar (LEN) have all seen their stocks more than double over that time. New orders at publicly-traded builders are up 30% since January, according to Kim.
Related: Is buying rental property now a sure bet?
Palacios said stocks in other sectors, from manufacturers of drywall to flooring to kitchen and bath fixtures, have all more than doubled as well this year.
The housing rebound can have a ripple effect that could help get the entire economy growing at a much stronger pace, which will add to more demand for housing.
"That turn in the [housing] market is occurring now and it should become a boom by 2015. It will be powerful enough ... to lift the entire U.S. economy," said Roger Altman, chairman of Evercore Partners and former deputy Treasury secretary, in a column for the Financial Times.
Altman said he expects housing will add 4 million jobs to the economy over the next five years, as pent-up demand for home purchases drives building and and home prices higher.
Friday, October 12, 2012
iPhone 5 owners don't care about the Maps issue? Wow.
Google and Samsung no doubt hope so...
Ninety Percent of iPhone 5 Owners Aren’t Bothered By Maps App:
ChangeWave
Thirty-two percent of consumers said that they are likely to buy an iPhone 5, according to a new report from ChangeWave Research. The report found that nineteen percent of respondents are “very likely” to buy the iPhone 5, which is up from the 10 percent of respondents who said they were “very likely” to buy an iPhone 4 back when it launched.
Despite all of the headlines about Apple’s bad Maps app, the report found that ninety percent of iPhone 5 owners reported it was “no problem at all” or that they “haven’t experienced any problem.” The report found that only 3 percent of respondents said it was a “very big problem” and 6 percent said it was “somewhat of a problem.”
In fact, the Maps app is even less of an issue than the antenna issues experienced by some iPhone 4 customers when that device first launched. At that time, ChangeWave interviewed consumers and found that 7 percent of new iPhone 4 owners had a “very big problem” with reception due to antenna issues and 14% had “somewhat of a problem.”
While some people are bothered by the new lightning port, more than half believe that it isn’t a problem. Still 6 percent of respondents said that it was a “very big problem,” and 31 percent said it was “somewhat of a problem.” The main reason that people aren’t planning to buy a new iPhone is that they don’t need it.
According to ChangeWave’s report, 61 percent of those interviewed said that they had no need for a new phone because their current cell phone is sufficient.
Posted by Dianna Dilworth on October 12, 2012.
Ninety Percent of iPhone 5 Owners Aren’t Bothered By Maps App:
ChangeWave
Thirty-two percent of consumers said that they are likely to buy an iPhone 5, according to a new report from ChangeWave Research. The report found that nineteen percent of respondents are “very likely” to buy the iPhone 5, which is up from the 10 percent of respondents who said they were “very likely” to buy an iPhone 4 back when it launched.
Despite all of the headlines about Apple’s bad Maps app, the report found that ninety percent of iPhone 5 owners reported it was “no problem at all” or that they “haven’t experienced any problem.” The report found that only 3 percent of respondents said it was a “very big problem” and 6 percent said it was “somewhat of a problem.”
In fact, the Maps app is even less of an issue than the antenna issues experienced by some iPhone 4 customers when that device first launched. At that time, ChangeWave interviewed consumers and found that 7 percent of new iPhone 4 owners had a “very big problem” with reception due to antenna issues and 14% had “somewhat of a problem.”
While some people are bothered by the new lightning port, more than half believe that it isn’t a problem. Still 6 percent of respondents said that it was a “very big problem,” and 31 percent said it was “somewhat of a problem.” The main reason that people aren’t planning to buy a new iPhone is that they don’t need it.
According to ChangeWave’s report, 61 percent of those interviewed said that they had no need for a new phone because their current cell phone is sufficient.
Posted by Dianna Dilworth on October 12, 2012.
YouTube. What are you doing?
YouTube now ranking videos by time watched, not clicks
October 12, 2012 | Casey Newton
In a bid to boost the time users spend on the site, videos that hold viewers' attention will rise higher in searches.
YouTube
YouTube's ongoing effort to keep visitors on its pages for longer took a new twist today, when the video portal said it will start ranking videos by how long people watch them.
The move makes it more difficult to game the system by choosing a provocative thumbnail image for your video in an effort to drive clicks. Instead, creators will be rewarded for actually getting viewers to watch the whole video.
It follows a similar change the Google-owned company made to its suggested videos feature earlier this year. "These changes better surface the videos that viewers actually watch, over those that they click on and then abandon," the company said at the time.
The move succeeded in getting viewers to stay longer, YouTube said today. The new search ranking algorithms should have a similar effect.
To help video creators adjust to the new ranking system, YouTube has added a 'time watched' metric to YouTube analytics.
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Casey Newton
Casey Newton writes about Google for CNET, which he joined in 2012 after covering technology for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is really quite tall.
October 12, 2012 | Casey Newton
In a bid to boost the time users spend on the site, videos that hold viewers' attention will rise higher in searches.
YouTube
YouTube's ongoing effort to keep visitors on its pages for longer took a new twist today, when the video portal said it will start ranking videos by how long people watch them.
The move makes it more difficult to game the system by choosing a provocative thumbnail image for your video in an effort to drive clicks. Instead, creators will be rewarded for actually getting viewers to watch the whole video.
It follows a similar change the Google-owned company made to its suggested videos feature earlier this year. "These changes better surface the videos that viewers actually watch, over those that they click on and then abandon," the company said at the time.
The move succeeded in getting viewers to stay longer, YouTube said today. The new search ranking algorithms should have a similar effect.
To help video creators adjust to the new ranking system, YouTube has added a 'time watched' metric to YouTube analytics.
You may also like
Samsung Galaxy S4 to debut in FebruaryCNET
Samsung squashes rumors of Galaxy S4 early 2013 launchCNET
Preload YouTube videos with Wi-Fi for better mobile playbackCNET
YouTube breaks records with 4M Creative Commons videosCNET
From Around the Web
More on the Stock Market Rally No One Is Talking AboutProfit Confidential
Now Is Not The Time To Sell NokiaFool.com
about these links
Casey Newton
Casey Newton writes about Google for CNET, which he joined in 2012 after covering technology for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is really quite tall.
Numbers are numbers. What will it actually mean for Americans and the world economy?
U.S. Government Posts Fourth-Largest Deficit Since World War II
By Meera Louis and Ian Katz
October 12, 2012
The government budget deficit in the U.S. for the year ended in September was the fourth-largest since World War II as lawmakers debate the impact of the looming spending cuts a month before the election.
The shortfall registered $1.09 trillion in fiscal 2012, down from $1.3 trillion in 2011, according to Treasury Department data issued today in Washington. It reached $1.42 trillion in 2009, the highest ever. In September, the U.S. registered a surplus of $75 billion compared with a shortfall of $62.7 billion in the same month last year.
The U.S. faces a so-called fiscal cliff of $1.2 trillion in mandated spending cuts, including an expiration of George W. Bush-era reductions, if Congress can’t agree by Dec. 31 on ways to reduce the deficit. The world’s largest economy shows signs of improvement as unemployment last month dropped to the lowest level since January 2009.
“The Bush tax cuts are shaping up to be the main political battleground, and I would currently lean toward the idea that a deal will not get done until after the turn of the year,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the report.
The September surplus matched the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
When lawmakers return to Washington in November for a post- election session, they will have only weeks to avert more than $500 billion in tax increases and $100 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect in January. A bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators is meeting this week to seek to identify broad areas of agreement on taxes and entitlement programs, without discussion of specific numbers or targets.
The White House budget office has said the budget cuts, known as sequestration and set to start in January, would undermine economic investment and cause “severe harm” to initiatives including food-safety inspections, air-traffic control and support for schools.
“The administration strongly believes that sequestration is bad policy, and that Congress can and should take action to avoid it by passing a comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction package,” the White House budget office report said.
Moody’s Investors Service said Sept. 11 that it may join Standard & Poor’s in downgrading the U.S.’s credit rating unless Congress next year reduces the percentage of debt-to-gross- domestic-product during budget negotiations.
Today’s report showed revenue rose 8.9 percent in September from the same month a year earlier, to $262 billion. Spending dropped 38 percent to $187 billion from $303 billion.
To contact the reporters on this story: Meera Louis in Washington at mlouis1@bloomberg.net; Ian Katz in Washington at ikatz2@bloomberg.net
By Meera Louis and Ian Katz
October 12, 2012
The government budget deficit in the U.S. for the year ended in September was the fourth-largest since World War II as lawmakers debate the impact of the looming spending cuts a month before the election.
The shortfall registered $1.09 trillion in fiscal 2012, down from $1.3 trillion in 2011, according to Treasury Department data issued today in Washington. It reached $1.42 trillion in 2009, the highest ever. In September, the U.S. registered a surplus of $75 billion compared with a shortfall of $62.7 billion in the same month last year.
The U.S. faces a so-called fiscal cliff of $1.2 trillion in mandated spending cuts, including an expiration of George W. Bush-era reductions, if Congress can’t agree by Dec. 31 on ways to reduce the deficit. The world’s largest economy shows signs of improvement as unemployment last month dropped to the lowest level since January 2009.
“The Bush tax cuts are shaping up to be the main political battleground, and I would currently lean toward the idea that a deal will not get done until after the turn of the year,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the report.
The September surplus matched the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
When lawmakers return to Washington in November for a post- election session, they will have only weeks to avert more than $500 billion in tax increases and $100 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect in January. A bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators is meeting this week to seek to identify broad areas of agreement on taxes and entitlement programs, without discussion of specific numbers or targets.
The White House budget office has said the budget cuts, known as sequestration and set to start in January, would undermine economic investment and cause “severe harm” to initiatives including food-safety inspections, air-traffic control and support for schools.
“The administration strongly believes that sequestration is bad policy, and that Congress can and should take action to avoid it by passing a comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction package,” the White House budget office report said.
Moody’s Investors Service said Sept. 11 that it may join Standard & Poor’s in downgrading the U.S.’s credit rating unless Congress next year reduces the percentage of debt-to-gross- domestic-product during budget negotiations.
Today’s report showed revenue rose 8.9 percent in September from the same month a year earlier, to $262 billion. Spending dropped 38 percent to $187 billion from $303 billion.
To contact the reporters on this story: Meera Louis in Washington at mlouis1@bloomberg.net; Ian Katz in Washington at ikatz2@bloomberg.net
Will Google continue to compromise iOS users? And other bits...
Maps, Google+ Upgrades For iOS, Android
By Gary Krakow - 10/11/12
Tickers in this article: AMZN FB GOOG AAPL
NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Who will reign supreme in the mobile market? Google(GOOG)or Apple(AAPL)? Internet heavyweight Google calls it the industry's "defining fight."
Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt expects more than one billion devices, worldwide, will be running his company's Android software within a year. But the search giant's not stopping there.
Early on Thursday, Google released a giant update to the Maps application; its 'Street View' feature in particular.
According to the company's blog,
Street View is now:
"more comprehensive than ever before by launching our biggest ever update--doubling our number of special collections and updating over 250,000 miles of roads around the world. We're increasing Street View coverage in Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the U.S., Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada. And we're launching special collections in South Africa, Japan, Spain, France, Brazil and Mexico, among others."
Apple dropped Google Maps from the latest version of its iOS mobile operating system in a long-brewing corporate battle for supremacy. Google has hinted/promised a new, standalone version of Maps for iOS fans by the end of the year.
And, it doesn't stop there. Google also released an update for its Google+ application on Thursday. The new software adds improved support for iPhone 5/iOS 6 users as well as new features and a redesigned widget for Android lovers.
In an interview with AllThingsD, Schmidt reiterated his belief that the industry will soon be dominated by software platforms from what he's termed the "Gang of Four" - Google, Apple, Amazon(AMZN) and Facebook(FB).
By Gary Krakow - 10/11/12
Tickers in this article: AMZN FB GOOG AAPL
NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Who will reign supreme in the mobile market? Google(GOOG)or Apple(AAPL)? Internet heavyweight Google calls it the industry's "defining fight."
Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt expects more than one billion devices, worldwide, will be running his company's Android software within a year. But the search giant's not stopping there.
Early on Thursday, Google released a giant update to the Maps application; its 'Street View' feature in particular.
According to the company's blog,
Street View is now:
"more comprehensive than ever before by launching our biggest ever update--doubling our number of special collections and updating over 250,000 miles of roads around the world. We're increasing Street View coverage in Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the U.S., Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada. And we're launching special collections in South Africa, Japan, Spain, France, Brazil and Mexico, among others."
Apple dropped Google Maps from the latest version of its iOS mobile operating system in a long-brewing corporate battle for supremacy. Google has hinted/promised a new, standalone version of Maps for iOS fans by the end of the year.
And, it doesn't stop there. Google also released an update for its Google+ application on Thursday. The new software adds improved support for iPhone 5/iOS 6 users as well as new features and a redesigned widget for Android lovers.
In an interview with AllThingsD, Schmidt reiterated his belief that the industry will soon be dominated by software platforms from what he's termed the "Gang of Four" - Google, Apple, Amazon(AMZN) and Facebook(FB).
The saber rattling continues. Apple gets reprieve in Korea. Is this a hint?
Apple wins iPhone and iPad delay of ban in South Korea
Posted by Chris Burns on October 11, 2012.
Though it seemed as though Apple had lost a battle against Samsung earlier this year with a ban of both the iPad and the iPhone in South Korea, an update has been made today by the court that the defending party will be able to keep items for sale pending appeal. This event is rather similar to the situation currently happening in the USA with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, also placed back up for sale pending appeal in a completely Apple vs Samsung case. This case in South Korea had the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, and iPad 2 banned from sale due to Samsung connectivity patents.
Oddly enough, several Samsung Galaxy devices remain banned from sale in South Korea because they’ve not sought appeals as Apple has. It is because an appeal has been sought by Apple in this case that they’re able to keep their devices up for sale in the country. The August 24th ruling in this case remains in place unless Samsung decides to take action as they have – so to speak – in the USA-based case.
Here in the USA, the case regards quite a few patens owned by Apple that Apple says Samsung crossed over with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. This is just one of several devices that Apple successfully had banned over the past year inside the USA, another of them being the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, another device that has been placed back on sale after a brief period of time this Summer.
Have a peek at the timeline below to see what’s been happening in this epic battle that’ll be going on for a long, long time. It’s this battle that Google’s own people feel will be the death of us all, you might like to know, and it’s certainly not something that we’re glad to see continue – nor is anyone not profiting from the experience, of course. Stay tuned for more device wars in the courtroom.
Posted by Chris Burns on October 11, 2012.
Though it seemed as though Apple had lost a battle against Samsung earlier this year with a ban of both the iPad and the iPhone in South Korea, an update has been made today by the court that the defending party will be able to keep items for sale pending appeal. This event is rather similar to the situation currently happening in the USA with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, also placed back up for sale pending appeal in a completely Apple vs Samsung case. This case in South Korea had the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, and iPad 2 banned from sale due to Samsung connectivity patents.
Oddly enough, several Samsung Galaxy devices remain banned from sale in South Korea because they’ve not sought appeals as Apple has. It is because an appeal has been sought by Apple in this case that they’re able to keep their devices up for sale in the country. The August 24th ruling in this case remains in place unless Samsung decides to take action as they have – so to speak – in the USA-based case.
Here in the USA, the case regards quite a few patens owned by Apple that Apple says Samsung crossed over with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. This is just one of several devices that Apple successfully had banned over the past year inside the USA, another of them being the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, another device that has been placed back on sale after a brief period of time this Summer.
Have a peek at the timeline below to see what’s been happening in this epic battle that’ll be going on for a long, long time. It’s this battle that Google’s own people feel will be the death of us all, you might like to know, and it’s certainly not something that we’re glad to see continue – nor is anyone not profiting from the experience, of course. Stay tuned for more device wars in the courtroom.
The science of waiting in line?
According to the experts, the best explanation for why consumers wait in line just so that they can hand over money for the newest iPhone or a Black Friday doorbuster deal is that … it’s fun?
A New York Times op-ed published over the summer declared in the headline that waiting in line is “torture,” and here’s why:
Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting in line. The dominant cost of waiting is an emotional one: stress, boredom, that nagging sensation that one’s life is slipping away. The last thing we want to do with our dwindling leisure time is squander it in stasis.
So true. Everybody hates lines. Or do they? Despite the largely universal loathing of lines and time wasting away unnecessarily, it’s become commonplace in society today for consumers to willingly, happily volunteer to partake in such torture, waiting on line for hours, if not days, for the latest iPhone or Nike sneakers, as well as for Black Friday sales and rides at Walt Disney World.
What can explain such behavior? Why is it that we can gripe about lines at airports and government offices one second, and then break our backs standing in them outside an Apple Store the next, all the while there are plenty of other, far more reasonable ways to get what we want?
For the most part, consumers aren’t waiting in line for logical reasons. They aren’t there to get the absolute best prices, nor (limited edition Nikes notwithstanding) to get their hands on a scarce, highly valuable commodity. What is it, then?
Consumer analysts and marketing researchers offer this explanation, which is puzzling to those of us who try to avoid queues like the plague: Waiting in line is fun, and makes you feel good about yourself.
Wait, what? What about the idea that lines are torture, and that we suffer the “nagging sensation that one’s life is slipping away” while waiting in them?
Apparently, stronger psychological forces are at work, at least when it comes to a certain breed of shopper. “The shared experience of waiting is part of what’s driving consumer satisfaction,” according to the experts cited in a MarketWatch story. Instead of the communal suffering in a wait to get through an airport TSA checkpoint, waiting outside an Apple Store for the latest iWhatever, or camping out on a Best Buy sidewalk before Black Friday, has become a giddy, exciting experience shared by those willingly joining in.
Being surrounded by like-minded consumers, who have also decided that it makes sense to wait in line, is a sign that you’re not alone—and that your choices on what to buy and how long it’s worth standing around to buy it are sound:
[It's] a concept known as “social proof.” And that holds true even in the face of considerable logic to the contrary; a name-brand television, for example, is actually more expensive on Black Friday than on several other holiday-season shopping days
Since Black Friday has just so-so prices on big-name TVs, and the iPhone can be purchased without requiring anyone to wait in lines, it would seem to be pretty easy to demonstrate that the emperor has no clothes. Instead, thanks to brilliant marketing and the stubborn crowd mentality, Daniel M. Ladik, a marketing professor at the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University, tells MarketWatch that he thinks lines for the newest, most buzzworthy products are here to stay:
“It’s a community thing,” he says of those lines stretched outside Apple stores. “There’s no other logic to it.”
If there’s one thing that people who hate all lines and people who only hate lines that don’t involve Nikes, Apple products, Black Friday, Disney, or video games can agree on, it’s this, from the Times story:
Perhaps the biggest influence on our feelings about lines, though, has to do with our perception of fairness. When it comes to lines, the universally acknowledged standard is first come first served: any deviation is, to most, a mark of iniquity and can lead to violent queue rage.
In the case of iPhones especially, fair line etiquette is observed and it’s always first-come, first-serve. And all who wait in line can call themselves winners: They secure bragging rights and an ego boost when getting their hands on the new gadget before anyone who didn’t wait in line.
Then again, the folks who didn’t bother to stand overnight outside an Apple Store can also consider themselves winners, and smarter-than-average consumers — because they didn’t just waste a bunch of time standing in line.
Brad Tuttle is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bradrtuttle. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
A New York Times op-ed published over the summer declared in the headline that waiting in line is “torture,” and here’s why:
Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting in line. The dominant cost of waiting is an emotional one: stress, boredom, that nagging sensation that one’s life is slipping away. The last thing we want to do with our dwindling leisure time is squander it in stasis.
So true. Everybody hates lines. Or do they? Despite the largely universal loathing of lines and time wasting away unnecessarily, it’s become commonplace in society today for consumers to willingly, happily volunteer to partake in such torture, waiting on line for hours, if not days, for the latest iPhone or Nike sneakers, as well as for Black Friday sales and rides at Walt Disney World.
What can explain such behavior? Why is it that we can gripe about lines at airports and government offices one second, and then break our backs standing in them outside an Apple Store the next, all the while there are plenty of other, far more reasonable ways to get what we want?
For the most part, consumers aren’t waiting in line for logical reasons. They aren’t there to get the absolute best prices, nor (limited edition Nikes notwithstanding) to get their hands on a scarce, highly valuable commodity. What is it, then?
Consumer analysts and marketing researchers offer this explanation, which is puzzling to those of us who try to avoid queues like the plague: Waiting in line is fun, and makes you feel good about yourself.
Wait, what? What about the idea that lines are torture, and that we suffer the “nagging sensation that one’s life is slipping away” while waiting in them?
Apparently, stronger psychological forces are at work, at least when it comes to a certain breed of shopper. “The shared experience of waiting is part of what’s driving consumer satisfaction,” according to the experts cited in a MarketWatch story. Instead of the communal suffering in a wait to get through an airport TSA checkpoint, waiting outside an Apple Store for the latest iWhatever, or camping out on a Best Buy sidewalk before Black Friday, has become a giddy, exciting experience shared by those willingly joining in.
Being surrounded by like-minded consumers, who have also decided that it makes sense to wait in line, is a sign that you’re not alone—and that your choices on what to buy and how long it’s worth standing around to buy it are sound:
[It's] a concept known as “social proof.” And that holds true even in the face of considerable logic to the contrary; a name-brand television, for example, is actually more expensive on Black Friday than on several other holiday-season shopping days
Since Black Friday has just so-so prices on big-name TVs, and the iPhone can be purchased without requiring anyone to wait in lines, it would seem to be pretty easy to demonstrate that the emperor has no clothes. Instead, thanks to brilliant marketing and the stubborn crowd mentality, Daniel M. Ladik, a marketing professor at the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University, tells MarketWatch that he thinks lines for the newest, most buzzworthy products are here to stay:
“It’s a community thing,” he says of those lines stretched outside Apple stores. “There’s no other logic to it.”
If there’s one thing that people who hate all lines and people who only hate lines that don’t involve Nikes, Apple products, Black Friday, Disney, or video games can agree on, it’s this, from the Times story:
Perhaps the biggest influence on our feelings about lines, though, has to do with our perception of fairness. When it comes to lines, the universally acknowledged standard is first come first served: any deviation is, to most, a mark of iniquity and can lead to violent queue rage.
In the case of iPhones especially, fair line etiquette is observed and it’s always first-come, first-serve. And all who wait in line can call themselves winners: They secure bragging rights and an ego boost when getting their hands on the new gadget before anyone who didn’t wait in line.
Then again, the folks who didn’t bother to stand overnight outside an Apple Store can also consider themselves winners, and smarter-than-average consumers — because they didn’t just waste a bunch of time standing in line.
Brad Tuttle is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bradrtuttle. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
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