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Pricing niche products

kevinlynagh.com

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Re: Pricing niche products

#101

Post by bradstewart »

overthemoon wrote: post #9

What, really, are the benefits? I used a friend's mechanical keyboard and it felt nice. Is that it? Is it necessary to spend 100s to get a good one? The whole thing seems insane to me. No judgement, I spend money on other stuff, it just doesn't make sense to me personally. I typed this on a mac keyboard people seem to hate, so maybe it's Stockholm syndrome.

I bought a ~$40 mechanical keyboard on a recommendation about a year ago, and I've been pleasantly surprised. I now have two of them.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/AUKEY-Mechanical-Keyboard-Anti-ghosti...

Re: Pricing niche products

#102

Post by anonuser123456 »

Filligree wrote: post #88
anonuser123456 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence for a causal relationship between keyboard usage and RSI.

It's more common among computer users, isn't it? Though that alone isn't enough to define a cure.

It's not even correlated with keyboard usage, so no not more common.

Re: Pricing niche products

#103

Post by pbhjpbhj »

balfirevic wrote: post #77
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP said: > The hobby intentionally does nothing to try to improve [the drawbacks of the small scale] because the exclusivity drives prices up to an insane point. [...] There is nothing wrong with any of this. If it's still worth it for you, that's fine. Or if you figure that selling a few blinged-out "designer" models at ultra-premium prices helps support the main product, or if you don't care either way because…

> But describing that situation I quoted above, and saying "there is nothing wrong with this," is pretty debatable! "There is nothing wrong with this" in contexts like these usually means "nothing morally wrong".

Seems there's a pretty obvious argument why artificial scarcity purely for financial gain is wrong, assuming the goods provide a benefit of some kind (and if they don't then there are ready arguments not to sell them at all).

Re: Pricing niche products

#104

Post by buckminster »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #65
dwoozle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vendor doesn’t have to offer the socially optimal package. Other vendors can fill in other gaps.

The GP said: > The hobby intentionally does nothing to try to improve [the drawbacks of the small scale] because the exclusivity drives prices up to an insane point. [...] There is nothing wrong with any of this. If it's still worth it for you, that's fine. Or if you figure that selling a few blinged-out "designer" models at ultra-premium prices helps support the main product, or if you don't care either way because…

It's the same thing as limited edition prints. The exclusivity is the point. Though it's not my cup of tea.

Re: Pricing niche products

#105

Post by phjesusthatguy3 »

lewisflude wrote: post #12

I'm in the $600+ club too (Kepler that has a full brass bottom weight 6+kg, Kepler 65 with it's forged carbon top etc.) It's a really strange hobby. A bunch of people who really value and love keyboards, the thing that sits between a human and a computer, a tool that many (developers, writers, gamers) use every day for hours on end. Similar to how someone might invest in a nice knife if they love cooking, luxury-pric…

HN lambasts audiophiles every time stupid expensive audio gear comes up, yet here we are paying $hundreds for gimmick keyboard stuff.

SF developers making $100k or two a year just aren't in the same money league of the audiophiles spending $thousands on speaker wire.

EDIT: I'm not mad at any of the above groups I've mentioned; everybody gets their kicks from something, as well they should. I'm just mentioning what I see.

Re: Pricing niche products

#107

Post by phaus »

hprotagonist wrote: post #98
phaus wrote: post #2

I have a $600+ keyboard so I'm a part of this hobby. However, only a part of this can be explained by the expense of manufacturing at a small scale. The hobby fully embraces the drawbacks of the small scale and intentionally does nothing to try to improve it because the exclusivity drives prices up to an insane point. A typical group buy for a popular case sells out in minutes or days time after time. Clearly some of…

> My Keycaps cost 170 of that. They are modelled after the Space Cadet keyboard from an old LISP Machine. This was uneccessary obviously but I liked them. and now provide a link, please :)

My setup is the white version of this with the tenting kit but no wrist-guards (don't need them when its tented).

https://imgur.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards/BjycwBN

Here's the link to the keycaps alone with better pics. Unfortunately only available aftermarket now.

https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-oblotzky-gmk-space-cadet-key...

And here's the original:

https://www.rcsri.org/collection/symbolics-keyboards/symboli...

There's a bunch of extra function keys that extend the modern standard of CTRL-ALT-DELETE and supposedly enabled 8k command combinations that were useful for lisp machines. However, the later versions of them didn't have the same color scheme and dropped many of the additional keys for simplicity.

Re: Pricing niche products

#108

Post by CarVac »

equalunique wrote: post #6

It's disappointing how so much money is being poured into "mechanical keyboard kits" that simply re-create the old ANSI/ISO layouts that are rooted in old limitations from the days of the typewriter. Alternate layouts & ortholinear/ergonomic designs should be the forefront of the movement. All this focus on outdated designs makes the community "accessible" but also holds people back. The emergence of row-staggered 40…

The problem is you get to choose either a better layout or better keycaps.

My Mitosis has a really great layout but I paid more for non-legended caps so I could get the profile I wanted.

Other people with unusual ergo layouts go with non-sculpted profiles like DSA or SA R3 which I cannot stand.

Or you can go ANSI and get wonderful profiles like MT3 and DSS.

The compromise is to go with a standardized ergo layout like the Ergodox, which I regard as very suboptimal… its popularity stems from its availability and its availability stems from its popularity.

Re: Pricing niche products

#109

Post by pjc50 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #26
phaus wrote: post #2

I have a $600+ keyboard so I'm a part of this hobby. However, only a part of this can be explained by the expense of manufacturing at a small scale. The hobby fully embraces the drawbacks of the small scale and intentionally does nothing to try to improve it because the exclusivity drives prices up to an insane point. A typical group buy for a popular case sells out in minutes or days time after time. Clearly some of…

> There's nothing wrong with any of this There isn't? Deliberately understocking so that some of your users miss out and the rest have to pay more seems like it's all bad for the users, even if it's making money for somebody.

I can't see how there's anything wrong with deliberately doing a small production run of something, because if it undersells you're going to lose a lot of money.

Fundamentally these aren't utilitarian items, they're luxuries, and the market behaves as such. Limited editions are totally normal in the art world.

Re: Pricing niche products

#110

Post by CarVac »

terrellm wrote: post #46

I so want to get into mechnical keyboards but most of my work is done on a 2015 MacBook Pro and I'm so efficient with the large trackpad - I rest my palms on the laptop and can reach everything with just a pivot of the wrist. I tried the Magic Trackpad, but I kept having to move my forearm and it just slowed me down too much. What kind of mouse or trackpad is everyone using with these $xxx - $xxxx keyboards?

Trackballs. M570 or MX Ergo.
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