Consumer tech is getting so good and cheap and our free alternative is getting used so widely that regulations and consumer demand are changing quickly.Īnother source told The Hustle that graphing calculator sales have seen a 15% YoY decline in recent years – a trend that free alternatives like Desmos may be at least partially responsible for. What Texas Instruments is doing isn’t sustainable. Rent-seeking occurs when companies invest profits not into product development but into manipulating regulatory environments to protect market share. Obviously the profits and lobbying are interdependent. #Desmos graphing calculator ti 84 plusOne analyst placed the cost to produce a TI-84 Plus at around $15-20, meaning TI sells it for a profit margin of nearly 50% – far above the electronics industry’s average margin of 6.7%.Īccording to Open Secrets and ProPublica data, Texas Instruments paid lobbyists to hound the Department of Education every year from 2005 to 2009 – right around the time when mobile technology and apps were becoming more of a threat. Even still, they illuminated two surprising elements of the Texas Instruments business model. This cannot go on forever.Īs the chief academic officer at Desmos, a competitor of Texas Instruments calculators, I was already familiar with many of The Hustle’s findings. Imagine they were purchasing their kid’s first car and the available cars all looked, felt, acted, and cost largely the same as their first car. The Hustle describes Texas Instruments as having “a near-monopoly on graphing calculators for nearly three decades.” That means that some of the students who purchased TI calculators as college students are now purchasing calculators for their own kids that look, feel, act and (crucially) cost largely the same. This cannot go on forever.Įvery new school year, Twitter lights up with caregivers who can’t believe they have to buy their students a calculator that’s wildly underpowered and wildly overpriced relative to other consumer electronics. Fortunately, we're here to help you find the best graphing calculator for your needs and budget so you can start knocking your assignments out of the park.Economist Herb Stein’s quote ran through my head while I read The Hustle’s excellent analysis of the graphing calculator market. And given that these are relatively expensive devices, you really don't want to buy the wrong one only to find out in class that it can't do what you need it to do. With all the back to school sales currently running, there are a lot of great deals out there on the supplies you need, but there are also a lot of options to sort though. It's little wonder why most math and science teachers and professors will keep one handy in class, even if they have the latest computer readily available, since it is often quicker to just whip out graphing calculator and find an answer than it is to even Google it. The best graphing calculators will last you many years, if not a decade or more, thanks to their relatively simple electronics that won't wear out over time as quickly as even the best phone or tablet might do.Īnd while it takes some practice to effectively use, once you know your way around a good graphing calculator, even the most complex calculus equations can be broken down and visualized in a quick and easily understood manner. A graphing calculator is not just the best calculator for advanced mathematics and engineering, it is also an essential tool for physics, statistics, and even biology.
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