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As an engineer and business owner one of my main concerns is how to bring value to my customers. But making anything new or innovative is incredible expensive.

by pipio21 10y ago

As an engineer and business owner one of my main concerns is how to bring value to my customers. But making anything new or innovative is incredible expensive. For me expending 159 USD in those earbuds in VERY CHEAP considering that making one pair of those myself will cost me some tens of millions of dollars. Try it yourself to put accelerometers and gyroscopes, microphones a battery, a digital to analog converter, infrared sensors in such a small space and then tell me this is expensive. There are professional people who could spend wisely on something so lightweight like this and 160 dollars is no money. For example we have some robots controlled by voice and the current wireless headphones we use weight too much. Cables are dangerous in this environment. Some people believe that the world and the Universe rules around them. If they have not use for wireless earpods, or they don't have money for it, then nobody in the world has use for it, it it so expensive and "Unjustifiable consumerism". Apple has a history of bringing things to market that "nobody will use" by the critics and then when they sell like crazy it is marketing and people being stupid. If you consider people stupid, you should consider that maybe you are the stupid one and marketting in the real sense actually means understanding the market so well you create the thing that people needs before they know. After someone lent me a Gopro camera, I realize I needed one. That was marketing? Yeah, it was someone who had the same needs I have creating the product I needed before I knew.

makomk 10y ago
That upfront cost of tens of millions of dollars is spread across tens of millions of units sold. That's why you won't see devices like this aimed at niche markets like "robots controlled by voice and the current wireless headphones we use weight too much".
davidivadavid 10y ago
Yes, I personally find the (recurrent) dismissals of "marketing" posted on Hacker News are getting a little bit long in the tooth. It's either criticized as some magical tool that can flip a switch in people's mind and make them buy anything, or something completely useless because people should be able to educate themselves about the objective qualities of products before they make a decision. Every discussion gets muddled between people who a) have no experience in the field b) mix up marketing with advertising, with sales, or with anything they feel like criticizing c) do not seem to like the idea of commerce itself.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  There's marketing, and then there's marketing. You can do this by asking yourself what's the best product that would solve some problem for largest amount of people and then building that, or you can ask yourself how you can trick people into buying the cheapest shit you can get away with. A lot of marketing criticized on HN is of the second kind; this is also pretty much what most startups do, by the way.
  - davidivadavid 10y ago
    "There's engineering, and then there's engineering. You can do this by creating new products that help people solve problems, or you can manufacture bombs that blow up and kill people." And yet nobody criticizes "engineering". Odd, isn't it? The trouble I've noticed is that the vast majority are completely unwilling to consider that what they feel is "the cheapest shit you can get away with" could also be a perfectly fine product for a set of users. The product that will solve a problem for the largest number of people will tend to be cheap. That means most of the time it won't meet the requirement of first-world privileged engineers who think everything has to meet impossibly high standards of quality. But that doesn't mean it's something that's not worthy of anybody's consideration. So I guess the problem is with the "tricking people" rather than the quality of the product. But here's some sobering reality for you: no amount of "tricking" whatsoever will make people buy things they don't want. You need a good product, i.e. a product people want. Sure, some companies will use false advertising (illegal) or use other (illegal) means of coercing people into buying things. And... that's not "marketing", sorry. Much like I won't call "terrorism" "engineering" because some people used engineering knowledge to blow up a car somewhere.
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      > "the cheapest shit you can get away with" could also be a perfectly fine product for a set of users. Where cheapness is bad is when it is sacrificing a large amount of utility for a marginal price reduction, to trick people into thinking it's the best value. > no amount of "tricking" whatsoever will make people buy things they don't want. Well of course not, since the "trick" is making them want it when it will provide little benefit.

by pipio21 10y ago

makomk 10y ago

That upfront cost of tens of millions of dollars is spread across tens of millions of units sold. That's why you won't see devices like this aimed at niche markets like "robots controlled by voice and the current wireless headphones we use weight too much".

davidivadavid 10y ago

Yes, I personally find the (recurrent) dismissals of "marketing" posted on Hacker News are getting a little bit long in the tooth. It's either criticized as some magical tool that can flip a switch in people's mind and make them buy anything, or something completely useless because people should be able to educate themselves about the objective qualities of products before they make a decision. Every discussion gets muddled between people who a) have no experience in the field b) mix up marketing with advertising, with sales, or with anything they feel like criticizing c) do not seem to like the idea of commerce itself.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
There's marketing, and then there's marketing. You can do this by asking yourself what's the best product that would solve some problem for largest amount of people and then building that, or you can ask yourself how you can trick people into buying the cheapest shit you can get away with. A lot of marketing criticized on HN is of the second kind; this is also pretty much what most startups do, by the way.
- davidivadavid 10y ago
  "There's engineering, and then there's engineering. You can do this by creating new products that help people solve problems, or you can manufacture bombs that blow up and kill people." And yet nobody criticizes "engineering". Odd, isn't it? The trouble I've noticed is that the vast majority are completely unwilling to consider that what they feel is "the cheapest shit you can get away with" could also be a perfectly fine product for a set of users. The product that will solve a problem for the largest number of people will tend to be cheap. That means most of the time it won't meet the requirement of first-world privileged engineers who think everything has to meet impossibly high standards of quality. But that doesn't mean it's something that's not worthy of anybody's consideration. So I guess the problem is with the "tricking people" rather than the quality of the product. But here's some sobering reality for you: no amount of "tricking" whatsoever will make people buy things they don't want. You need a good product, i.e. a product people want. Sure, some companies will use false advertising (illegal) or use other (illegal) means of coercing people into buying things. And... that's not "marketing", sorry. Much like I won't call "terrorism" "engineering" because some people used engineering knowledge to blow up a car somewhere.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    > "the cheapest shit you can get away with" could also be a perfectly fine product for a set of users. Where cheapness is bad is when it is sacrificing a large amount of utility for a marginal price reduction, to trick people into thinking it's the best value. > no amount of "tricking" whatsoever will make people buy things they don't want. Well of course not, since the "trick" is making them want it when it will provide little benefit.