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Make product worse, get money

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Re: Make product worse, get money

#61

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

bigyabai wrote: post #57
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are explicitly not buying Tesla because of Musk and his politics. What do you call that if not a boycott?

There is no $25,000 Tesla - most of those the conscientious objectors weren't even in Tesla's target audience anyways. The "gotcha" of all luxury tech is that it's only a branding distinction. Which puts Tesla in a similar spot to the Apple situation, where the majority of customers are the least-likely to demand value, quality or moral consistency from their OEM. Your CEO can embarrass himself in interviews, ship no…

People in California were definitely Teslas target audience. The difference is there are plenty of cars that are just as good as Teslas. What are people in the US going to do that don’t want iPhones? Buy crappy ad infested Android devices?

Google is one of the companies that bribed Trump to leave him alone to “settle a lawsuits

Re: Make product worse, get money

#62

Post by recursivecaveat »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #49
starkparker wrote: post #17

> Why is food so expensive at sporting events? ... why don’t venues sell water for $2 and raise ticket prices instead? I don’t know. Probably something complicated, like that expensive food allows you to extract extra money from rich people without losing business from non-rich people. Because there's at least two additional parties to concession revenues beyond the venue operator: the home team, who often takes up t…

I would add that there is psychology at play as well. Someone might scoff at a $200 ticket, thinking it's ridiculous to pay that much, even if you could then eat at the venue for $20. But they'll pay $100 for a ticket, feeling it's reasonable, and then end spending $120 on concessions and beer anyway. The smells, sights, atmosphere and wanting to "just enjoy it" are compelling forces to reach for your wallet IMHO.

Definitely. There's almost always a strong incentive to move charges as far back into the flow as possible. Knock $5 off your ISP package price, then hit them with a $5 "infrastructure fee" at the credit card screen. For consumers, just because you picked a higher upfront price for a service doesn't mean you'll you won't be nickle-and-dimed later in addition, so it is not trivial to avoid. I guess you can view the "free with ads" model as the most popular implementation: get people in the door and then charge them with their time at crazy rates.

Re: Make product worse, get money

#63

Post by xg15 »

> So why don’t airlines rip out a row of seats, raise prices by 3% and enjoy the reduced costs for fuel and customer service? The only answer I can see is that people, on average, aren’t actually willing to pay 3% more for 2.5 cm more legroom. We want a worse but cheaper product, and so that’s what we get.

Who is "we"?

When was the public vote where a democratic majority of all airline customers rejected the idea? I must have missed the memo.

How much is that 3% in dollars?

Who came up with the initial seat number in the first place that the airline now "has to compensate" by raising prices?

The airline would reduce both revenue and costs, but somehow the raised prices only factor in the lost revenue and get to ignore the reduced costs. That's not even a question for the author?

Re: Make product worse, get money

#64

Post by jacknews »

The reasons given are all contributing factors, but the central issue is this:

Business, particularly under capitalism (where ownership is detached from operation) is about making a profit, not making great products or services

So price discrimination, corner-cutting, price gauging, vendor lock-in, planned-obsolescence, monopoly power, are all tools to increase profits.

Re: Make product worse, get money

#66

Post by analog31 »

HPsquared wrote: post #22
encroach wrote: post #14

Why don't highschools teach every student these two things? 1. The miracle of markets (supply and demand, "the invisible hand," etc.) 2. The weakness of markets (incomplete information, monopoly, etc.)

Probably the same reason they don't teach how rhetoric works.

The high school that my kids attended did.

Re: Make product worse, get money

#67

Post by andriamanitra »

The article misses the most important factor: the customers have no way of knowing they would be getting a better product or extra 25 millimeters of leg room if they paid 3% more. The higher prices could just as well be for completely unrelated reasons (greed, inefficiency, ...). No one is going around measuring and documenting every single difference between products and services, and, even if someone did, almost no one has time to do such thorough research for every purchase. It is increasingly difficult to find objective information about any commercial product. Any attempt at providing impartial information gets drowned in an ocean of marketing content, sponsored reviews, astroturfing, and brand tribalism.

Consequence of the above is that marketing and anecdotal evidence are much more influential factors in purchase decisions than quality of the product. Using marketing campaigns to brainwash people is significantly easier (and cheaper) than improving a product enough for them to notice – especially if the product already has a zombie customer base that chooses a familiar brand out of habit rather than merit. We have built a world where money is valued over value, and making better products is often a terrible business strategy.

Re: Make product worse, get money

#68

Post by VladVladikoff »

>Cars: “The thing about automakers is that making cars safe is expensive. So they have an incentive to make unsafe cars.” This analogy does not feel equivalent. The equivalent analogy here would be that automakers want to sell more cars so they make them as cheap as possible with intent to make them not last long. Which is actually somewhat accurate.

Re: Make product worse, get money

#69

Post by 0xCMP »

VladVladikoff wrote: post #68

>Cars: “The thing about automakers is that making cars safe is expensive. So they have an incentive to make unsafe cars.” This analogy does not feel equivalent. The equivalent analogy here would be that automakers want to sell more cars so they make them as cheap as possible with intent to make them not last long. Which is actually somewhat accurate.

Unfortunately it simply is true. The "same car" in another country is made cheaper. There are a variety of ways to do it and often it's justified as better than the alternative. For instance in India the goal is getting people off of motorcycles as that is a huge cause of driving deaths. To do that they remove various airbag systems, auto braking systems, and etc. which are not required in India... but are required in America or the EU.

Even between the EU and America there are differences in regulation with the EU often getting the stronger regulation first.

This video is my source for all of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVI-vFq39-I

I've done my best to remember most of it.

Re: Make product worse, get money

#70

Post by econ »

People (nowadays?) have no pride in what they do. Greed is praised not frowned upon. Money hungry maniacs without an ounce of even the most basic decency are idolized. It's pretty wild that people are also surprised by the outcome.

People use to believe they would burn in hell for all eternity, now even their prayers are selfish.

LOL

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