Typing Errors

The standard typewriter keyboard is Exhibit A in the hottest new case against markets. But the evidence has been cooked.

Stan Liebowitz & Stephen E. Margolis from the June 1996 issue

(Page 5 of 5)

The vitality of markets is that they allow competing alternatives to demonstrate their capabilities. The primary players in this drama are entrepreneurs, a group largely missing from the economic theories that claim to establish the potential for this new kind of market failure. These game-theory models limit firms to an artificially narrow choice of actions, while actual entrepreneurs look for ways to overcome supposed "lock-in." In theory, for instance, there's no such thing as a training course. Entrepreneurs, as we have argued in other writings, are the ones who will bring about the demise of an inefficient standard. Producers of alternative keyboards were motivated to cash in on the success allowed in a market-based economy. That they failed suggests that the non-QWERTY arrangements held no real advantage.

The QWERTY keyboard cannot be said to constitute evidence of any systematic tendency for markets to err. Very simply, no competing keyboard has offered enough advantage to warrant a change. The story of Dvorak's superiority is a myth or, perhaps more properly, a hoax.

In April 1990, we published a more detailed version of this material in a Journal of Law and Economics article titled "The Fable of the Keys." This journal is well known and has published some of the most influential articles in economics. In the six years since we published that article there has been no attempt to refute any of our factual claims, to discredit the GSA study, or to resurrect the Navy study. Unless some new evidence is produced to support a claim of QWERTY's inferiority to Dvorak, how can it even be said that there are two sides to a legitimate scientific disagreement over the keyboard?

Yet the QWERTY myth continues to be cited as if it were the truth. Krugman's book has a 1994 copyright. Frank and Cook's copyright is 1995. In a 1992 article in Industrial and Corporate Change, Paul David cites the QWERTY example, as do Michael Katz and Carl Shapiro in their Spring 1994 article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

In a 1995 article on chaos theory, Michael Schermer goes on at length about the need for examples of path dependence. With that, he devotes an entire section, titled "The QWERTY Principle of History," to repeating the myth of Dvorak superiority. The Social Science Citation Index for 1994 shows a total of 28 citations to Paul David's 1985 American Economic Review article presenting the QWERTY myth (the very large majority of these are uncritical uses of the QWERTY story). And there is no sign of abatement. The Citation Index for the first two-thirds of 1995, which is all that is available as of this writing, shows 25 citations. If academics keep using a false example, authors of popular articles can hardly be held to higher standards of scholarship.

Apparently the theory of path dependence and lock-in to inferior technologies is in trouble without the QWERTY example. Apparently the cost of giving up this example is greater than the discomfort associated with its illegitimate use. Apparently the typewriter example is of such importance to many writers because it can so easily persuade people that an interventionist technology policy is necessary. How else to explain its continued use in this literature? Since an interventionist technology policy is no more likely to benefit consumers than are the myriad other government interventions in the market, we should not be surprised that good examples are largely fictional.

Comments

Pingback| 10.1.09 @ 3:38PM

Click World News » Blog Archive » Shooting Down The Claim That The AK-47 Needed Intel links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…and the VHS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it's a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn't supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the "quality" that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax may have been…

Pingback| 10.1.09 @ 3:39PM

Free Readings Online » Blog Archive » Shooting Down The Claim That The AK-47 Needed I links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…and the VHS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it's a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn't supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the "quality" that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax may have been…

Pingback| 10.1.09 @ 3:41PM

Shooting Down The Claim That The AK-47 Needed Intellectual Property Protection | bitb links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…and the VHS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it's a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn't supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the "quality" that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax may have been…

Pingback| 10.1.09 @ 9:48PM

Shooting Down The Claim That The AK-47 Needed Intellectual Property Protection | dv8- links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…HS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it’s a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn’t supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the “quality” that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax…

Pingback| 10.2.09 @ 12:45PM

You Get The . Info » Shooting Down The Claim That The AK-47 Needed Intellectual Prope links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…HS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it’s a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn’t supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the “quality” that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax…

Pingback| 10.2.09 @ 2:03PM

Shooting Down The Claim That The AK-47 Needed Intellectual Property Protection – 34th links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…HS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it’s a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn’t supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the “quality” that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax…

Pingback| 10.5.09 @ 6:33PM

keyboard layout... - Fires of Heaven Guild Message Board links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Cathan IIRC the QWERTY keyboard layout was designed so people using the old style typewriters where the keys swung in couldn't type so fast that the swing keys would get hung together. This is a myth. Typing Errors - Reason Magazine But, if you really want to try another keyboard layout that is supposed to be better, you can try DVORAK as has been mentioned. Also, there are digital LCD keyboards. Optimus Maximus keyboard…

youngminii|10.19.09 @ 3:31AM|#

Worst article ever.