Sorry, but your QWERTY story is nothing but a (popular) myth.
QWERTY was *not* designed to slow typists down. The layout has
not--so far, at least--been "easily improved upon". The ergonomics
literature suggests it might be possible to improve typing speed
about 5%, but even that increase is doubtful.
Standards are not randomly chosen nor irrevocable. All the arguments
used to assert invincibility for some standard are refuted by much
empirical evidence. Consider, for examples, Lotus 1-2-3 and
WordPerfect. (Or, for that matter, Wang word processing machines.)
Some references for the interested reader:
S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, "The Fable of the Keys." Journal of Law and Economics, April 1990, pp. 1-26.
S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, "Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy." Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1994, pp. 133-150.
Craig M. Newmark
Associate Professor of Economics
North Carolina State University |
