> I'd argue that the externalities of giving Macbooks to the 30 million children have a positive impact on the children who receive nothing.

Yes, investment in better education equipment for some of the population will inevitably have externalities on the others. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's money well spent - but it will have positive externalities.

> This is especially true if you look for variables that correlate to success, rather than instituting a pure lottery. For example, a child who has already demonstrated an interest in science or mathematics may be primed to make greater use of a device.

My scenario was that 90 million need laptops, so I don't think it's useful to say "well I will assume only 30 million actually need laptops" - That's just a get out of jail card.

But even accepting your scenario - there is a bigger question - why are 60 million children getting nothing, when the government could just give the 30 million kids adequate laptops and spend the difference (54 billion dollars) investing in education for the remaining population.

The idea that it is a good idea to spend money on macbooks while some of the population still doesn't have access to primary schools, and where the difference between buying a macbook and an adequate laptop for one child could pay for another kid who can't go to school at all (and is working in subsistence agriculture), is crazy to me...

> Assuming there were 270 million children with no mobile devices, I would rather give all of them a Samsung Galaxy A01 that gives them all access to the information they need, than give 90 million of them a pretty good Acer or decent Chromebook and the other 180 million of the children nothing.

I don't think that's a useful comparison - it's like comparing an expensive pick-up truck ($30k), a lower cost pick-up truck ($10k) and a car ($3k). The expensive pick-up truck can do the same job as the lower cost pick up truck (hold c1000kg of cargo) but maybe doesn't have the same quality, while the car cannot hold 1000kg of cargo so can't be used in the same way.

Similarly, while I can write an essay or write software approximately as easily on a macbook as I can an entry-level windows laptop (I own both, and the difference is fairly small), I cannot do either of those in a practical sense on a mobile phone.

> From an individual donor perspective, one factor I haven't mentioned is that it's easier to get one Macbook Air through customs in a foreign country than it is to get three identical Acer Aspires. Some countries are more permissive than others, but at a certain point all customs officers have to make inferences about you and your intentions to sell goods without paying import duties.

Customs is not usually an issue, all laptops share the same commodity codes and customs fees are on a per-container basis managed by a freight forwarder. You will need to pay the same import duties on both (probably on WTO terms) because they will have the same commodity codes. (My day job is logistics consulting and I do some work in East Africa!). One exception to this is China which can be more difficult to import into and operate in.

One peculiarity of parts of Africa for instance though compared to the west though that does make an impact is theft. Theft of high-value items is very common, mainly because $1k in America is worth $10k-$20k in Africa relative to earnings. Stealing a few laptops from some kids, and stripping them and selling them for parts, is something that will happen with higher priced laptops. There is a good chance that this will also be done by organised crime.