If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming • Hacker News Board

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#121

Post by yayadarsh » Wed, Dec 15, 2010, 10:16 PM UTC

eftpotrm wrote: post #101

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend worked on a documentary about a major UK supermarket a while back. Talking to them off camera they admitted that their budget range chickens and their regular chickens where identical save the packaging.

I'm not entirely surprised but I don't see where's the incentive for them to behave like this. They double the lines they must carry and are surely to some degree both undercutting themselves and overcharging so reducing sales. Surely they could achieve better results with a mid-range pricing and labelling?

When firms offer price discrimination (that's what this is called formally, offering different prices to various classes of consumer) they are making more money by taking the consumer surplus that would have been made (the extra money a consumer would have paid for the good).

Think of it this way: a rich man is willing to pay up to $10.00 for the chicken breast that his family needs for dinner, but his blue-collar cousin can only afford $6.00 at the most. Had the grocery store only created one line with the price of $8.00, their revenue from these two consumers would be only the rich man's sale, 8 dollars. If, on the other hand, the store had two lines, one for $5 and one for $10, they can make 15 dollars from these two shoppers!

Hope that clears it up.

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#122

Post by eftpotrm » Thu, Dec 16, 2010, 12:52 AM UTC

yayadarsh wrote: post #121

eftpotrm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely surprised but I don't see where's the incentive for them to behave like this. They double the lines they must carry and are surely to some degree both undercutting themselves and overcharging so reducing sales. Surely they could achieve better results with a mid-range pricing and labelling?

When firms offer price discrimination (that's what this is called formally, offering different prices to various classes of consumer) they are making more money by taking the consumer surplus that would have been made (the extra money a consumer would have paid for the good). Think of it this way: a rich man is willing to pay up to $10.00 for the chicken breast that his family needs for dinner, but his blue-collar co…

No, I'm aware of the theory, I'm just not at all convinced it actually works out anything like this in practice - particularly once the extra costs of carrying the same line artificially twice are factored in. Oh well - they know their business but it still sounds fishy to me!

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#123

Post by ecuzzillo » Thu, Dec 16, 2010, 2:27 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #113

ecuzzillo wrote: post #50

You can order a filet for a fairly predictable price, it will take a fairly predictable amount of time, and it will fairly predictably make you happy. Software, by and large, does not make people happy or do what they want nearly as reliably as steak does, and so if I were them I would be much more finicky about paying people to make it for me than I am about paying people to make me steak. And especially, software m…

The obvious counterpoint to that is that there is no give and take in the preparation of a filet. The success of a development project, or software implementation depends just as much on involvement from the customer as it does for the developer or provider. In the enterprise, this means setting up a project consisting of stakeholders from which you can gather information, get integration assistance, etc. In the sing…

The remediation would be to leave the restaurant that lets customers demand more salt, and get a job at a restaurant where salt is applied correctly and customers can take it or leave it.

In other words, if you're good at programming, why are you in the custom software business instead of something more scalable?

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#124

Post by cubicle67 » Thu, Dec 16, 2010, 3:16 AM UTC

calloc wrote: post #109

cubicle67 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bargain for almost everything (much to my wife's embarrassment :). One thing I've found, is that if you can't get them to reduce the price, you can often get extras thrown in. I recently bought a fairly expensive coffee machine (a real one, not one of those electronic ones); supplier wouldn't budge on price, but I did manage to get $400 credited to my account, 2x barrista training vouchers worth $150 each, and a fe…

Where did you end up getting a MacBook with free Applecare? I want in on this!

JB HiFi, Cockburn (yes, that's a real suburb (pronounced co-burn)) in Perth

Got it late one evening early 2009 or late 2008. It's one of the first gen unibody Al macbooks. Conversation was something like

"Hang on, let me go check with the boss"

[few minutes later] "We can't drop the price, but if you're willing to buy it right now we can throw in free Applecare and a free case"

"Deal"

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#125

Post by ghaff » Thu, Dec 16, 2010, 4:54 AM UTC

mquander wrote: post #112

jrockway wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm just saying it's weird. People tried this (+) with houses and it didn't work very well. Why meals? (+) this == "You saw the price and consumed the product, now it's time to pay." "But I don't have any money." "Oh fuck. I'm fucked, not you, even though you're the asshole."

If you have to pay the money up front, you're less likely to buy; that's true for houses because they cost so much, and it's true for meals because there are lots of small individual charges in the course of a full meal. I guess restaurants find that the money lost via dine-and-dashing is not as bad as the money lost to misers.

Although you can get people to pre-buy at a discount (i,e, Groupon or, less directly, the various coupon books.)

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#126

Post by detst » Thu, Dec 16, 2010, 5:13 AM UTC

maxer wrote: post #77

detst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it time to go 5-6x?

the cheaper your hourly rate is, the less that people respect you, simple. if your not told your expensive on a monthly basis your too cheap

Hmm. Not sure if I was interpreted as saying something different (considering you have 3x the upvotes) but I agree.

If I wasn't clear, I was saying: if you're fully booked and charging 4x what you were once told is too much, are you considering increasing your rate? In general, I would say you should but I was interesting in hearing this person's thoughts.

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#127

Post by eru » Thu, Dec 16, 2010, 7:27 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #90

lionhearted wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great comment. > * Some stock is in constant demand, and you'll almost never get a discount. Black mens trousers, for example. The flipside is, if you're a guy and you're willing to wear light blue, pink, purple, and yellow, you can get some seriously great buys. You can get very high quality clothes in those colors for dirt cheap sometimes, which is why around half of my wardrobe is bright. It takes a little aesthet…

It takes a little aesthetic knowledge so you don't look ridiculous, but everyone should probably learn a little basic aesthetics anyways - it's one of those areas that a tiny bit of knowledge pays huge dividends. Very true, but how does one go about gaining this knowledge?

Try strange things, see if people chuckle.

(Experience is a harsh teacher.)

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#128

Post by pauldelany » Sat, Dec 18, 2010, 4:06 PM UTC

bendotc wrote: post #88

jrockway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty stupid to let someone eat your product before you even check to see if they brought their wallet, isn't it.

Are you saying people usually ask you to produce your wallet at the beginning of a meal when you eat at a restaurant? By ordering off the menu, you agree to the price on it. Similarly, when you sign an agreement to pay someone for work done, one would hope you'll pay that person when the work is done. Sadly, reality teaches us that this is not always the case.