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Pricing niche products

kevinlynagh.com

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Re: Pricing niche products

#221

Post by phaus »

antoinealb wrote: post #147
james-mcelwain wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference being audiophiles often fail A/B tests comparing audio quality. You would definitely notice how nice an expensive mechanical keyboard feels. Whether you think that is worth luxury pricing is another story, but the quality is at least more immediately appreciable.

I would be interested in seeing an AB test of keyboard enthusiast between say a 200$ keyboard and one that is 5x as expensive. Audiophiles also claimed that they would definitely notice a difference.

You would have to be careful. Most people buying cheap kits get the same stabilizers that everyone uses in every high end build, its like a $20 upgrade. They also clip the stabilizers, make sure they are lubed properly, and some people put pieces of cloth band-aids under them to soften impacts and make it more quiet. Some people also lube switches which is a little harder to do right and takes some tools.

If you wanted to test, it should be on equal footing. A $200 keyboard with the same switches and modifications as a $2000 keyboard. Same keycaps as well.

If we're talking kits, honestly you might even want to use the same board and just have the case be different.

Even with all that, there's a good chance they will be able to tell that the keyboards are different, simply because the acoustics of the cases are going to be different. They just won't be able to subjectively measure the quality.

$200 might be too low though, I think the realm of it not being noticeable is probably closer to $300-400+.

Re: Pricing niche products

#222

Post by phaus »

tomc1985 wrote: post #209
phjesusthatguy3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your parent comments need lambasting too, computer-nerdity isn't supposed to be this super bougie luxury hobby

I'm OK with people making fun of my nerd hobby. I have also spent $800 on a 100 year-old fountain pen so I can do some spencerian copperplate calligraphy. I got functional utility out of that purchase, but most of fountain pen collecting is about nerds spending craploads of money on things that look nice.

Perhaps people shouldn't have started paying nerds a good amount of money to do super nerdy things. I don't know what to tell you.

I'm under no illusion that I needed $170 colored pieces of plastic on my keyboard when the keyboard came with a perfectly good set that wasn't as pretty.

I'm really cheap in most aspects of my life though. I know people that buy new motorcycles every year or so or put a bunch of time and money into customizing a car. Lots of people that make a third of what I do think nothing of spending $300 in drinks at a club on the weekend a couple times a month. Computer bougieness seems like a bargain. And I'm even a cheap bastard about that most of the time. I refused to upgrade this GPU generation because the prices almost doubled.

Re: Pricing niche products

#223

Post by bonestamp2 »

anarchodev wrote: post #192
skyyler wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making an emotional response to something that you think is about you. Buying a mechanical keyboard and using it without showing it to anyone isn't what anyone was talking about. There are people that buy rare and expensive mechanical keyboards just to take pictures of them and post them on the internet. I'm not sure why you tried to turn a discussion about hobbies degrading into wealth signalling into your di…

I actually think the original parent post was a more emotionally reactionary than this response. Yeah, it could be the case that mechanical keyboard enthusiasts are all virtue-signaling snobs chasing clout on the internet... or it could be that some people just enjoy the things? And want to share their cool things? It could be that the community hivemind has decided on an orthodoxy and aggressively judges anyone who…

I've put together a number of fairly expensive keyboards ($700+) and I'm embarrassed to tell anyone I know (who sees them on my desk at home) how much they cost. I didn't build them for anyone but myself.

My dad thought one of them was really neat looking and was curious how much it cost. I was very reluctant to tell him but he kept asking and obviously was completely shocked when I told him the final cost. He couldn't understand it.

But, he has some expensive hobbies and I likened it to one of those. He couldn't relate to the joy of mechanical keyboards but he could relate to the passion of spending an illogical amount of money on something unnecessary but enjoyable.

Nearly everyone who has disposable income spends more than the average person does on something that they enjoy. That often means that you get something that is very unique to you and your personality. It's an expression of you, and that's comforting, even if it's only for yourself. These things are often entirely emotional decisions with no basis in logic whatever, and I think that's ok (assuming you can afford it).

I don't think many are buying any keyboard or kits just because they're expensive, but the cost might be indirectly related to the appeal -- because they're expensive they're more rare and that may make the buyer feel like they have something that is special and somewhat unique to them (because few others have it). I believe that same thing happens with rare and/or high end watches, cars, etc.

Re: Pricing niche products

#224

Post by tvanantwerp »

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…

I'm someone who really wants to try one of these newer split keyboards, but absolutely does not want to solder the damn thing together myself. I not only wish there were more of these keyboards, but I wish it were easy to just buy one all put-together.

Re: Pricing niche products

#225

Post by SuperPaintMan »

CarVac wrote: post #207
SuperPaintMan wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is you get to choose either a better layout or better keycaps. Very much this. I'm very fond of Kailh Chocs and use them in many of my designs [1], while an excellent switch you have exactly two colour options White Blanks and Black Blanks. If that wasn't bad enough they're different sizes then regular MX so if you don't have a board _specfically_ designed for them you end up with gaps in the caps. It su…

Neat! I actually got to lay hands on a Georgi yesterday because one of my online friends I met up with (for non-keyboard-purposes) brought one. Very solid-feeling.

Awesome! The switches are the best part 12g is insane for the first time. I feel like a drug dealer with those bags of springs :)

Re: Pricing niche products

#226

Post by qroshan »

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…

Great professionals (cooks, photographers) will definitely benefit from high-end tools because you get higher control (over craftsmanship), improved productivity etc.

For a keyboard, the signal delivered to the computer (the thing that really matters) is the same. It's the same freaking 'A' that gets delivered whether you type in a $1 keyboard or the $2000 keyboard. Most prolific writers or software programmers (for whom the keyboard really matters) produce amazing and impactful artifacts with regular keyboards.

Re: Pricing niche products

#228

Post by tomc1985 »

criley2 wrote: post #169
SuperPaintMan wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much signalling, you want something that sets you apart from other users and if that means custom CNC'd cases, with harvested switches that have been lubed using the finest tears mounted on a custom plate. So you have something to ogle and show off to the others. And that's before we get into the scarcity territory that sees secondhand TGR Alices going for over 5K. It's weird, a good chunk of people buy my Georg…

It's funny how on hacker news apparently buying a fancy keyboard for your home where no one can see it is "signalling", but if you point out that wearing Apple watch, holding iPhone, and displaying those ear buds is also signalling/branding/status symboling, I am generally very aggressively downvoted. I'd say buying a mechanical keyboard with RGB lights and nice switches is probably 100X less signalling (several orde…

I would love to pay less than $1000 for the new iphone, but the alternative is a platform that will sell me out to Google's highest bidder (Android) and has so many security and privacy issues that it is just downright scary. What's a nerd to do then if he wants the latest tech?

Librem/PureOS is an option but it's a bit of a nonstarter socially as there are a lot of interactions that take place over proprietary apps where alternatives are either way worse usability-wise or simply nonexistent. I'd love to switch to this platform but... most of my chats are on FB messenger/WhatsApp, my friend and I play scrabble via the scrabble app, and so on. What's the Librem option for that? Leaving open browser tabs and enabling those sites to send notifications?

Re: Pricing niche products

#229

Post by cestith »

whack wrote: post #91

When eBay first started, I loved the idea of auctions as a way to set market prices. From an economic and game-theory perspective, it is so optimal! Clearly as later examples like Amazon have shown, auctions don't make sense for most product categories. I believe this is mainly due to psychological reasons. Decision-fatigue is a real thing. People dislike having to think hard. In a fixed-price sale, the buyer just ha…

Increasing bid auctions, reverse auctions, and Vickrey auctions all have their pros and cons.

Estate auctions and multi-seller auctions at auction warehouses give liquidity to the assets that would take a lot of time and energy to list and sell individually. Contrary to the scenes of Christie's and Sotheby's in TV and film, many auctions don't come extensively catalogued. It's often just "Here's another batch of knickknacks. Bidding starts at $3" or "Here's four more boxes of books, mostly nonfiction. Will anyone bid $5?"

Re: Pricing niche products

#230

Post by catherd »

whack wrote: post #91

When eBay first started, I loved the idea of auctions as a way to set market prices. From an economic and game-theory perspective, it is so optimal! Clearly as later examples like Amazon have shown, auctions don't make sense for most product categories. I believe this is mainly due to psychological reasons. Decision-fatigue is a real thing. People dislike having to think hard. In a fixed-price sale, the buyer just ha…

On top of decision fatigue and needing to know the market, losing auctions gets expensive fast if you value your time.
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