Moore's law meets the razor

Everyone has had some fun mocking razor blade companies for their blade arms race. It seems like every week, one company tries to top the next with the number of blades they've crammed on a razor. Where will it stop?

But according to The Economist this isn't just some silly marketing game: It's a function of technology.

"Just like Moore's law--the observation that computer chips double in power every 18 months or so--it seems that technology as well as marketing determines the rate at which new blades are introduced."

Based on their data, razors with 14 blades should start showing up around 2100. Makes waxing seem like a good idea.

Blog community response:

"Cars started with 4 wheels, and it's a pity that they still run on 4. If car companies were like razor companies, by now we would be driving Super 7 from Audi with 7 wheels or a Nimble 9 from BMW with 9 wheels. Also, Tata Motors would be advertising More Wheels Per Car, instead of pathetic More Car Per Car. These cars could possibly have kept running even if one or two tyres went flat :-) Is any automobile marketer listening?"
--Simple person in a complex world

"Can we take this shaving business far, far too seriously? You bet."
--Preoccupations

"Basically, the number of blades in your razor is, well....pure hyperbola."
--All the hope that can be placed on a small square of cheap cardboard

"Now, that power-law curve predicts 14-bladed razors by the year 2100, but that's not the interesting curve. The interesting curve is the hyperbolic one, for two reasons: One, it matches the real-world data. And two, it goes to infinity in 2015. And how are you going to get an asymptotically-accelerating number of blades onto a razor? Why, you'd need godlike super-technology to do that."
--Avram Grumer