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Modularity in every industry is 3-10 times more expensive than monolithic commercial products, and this is no exception. I can buy a metal bed frame for $40 at

Modularity in every industry is 3-10 times more expensive than monolithic commercial products, and this is no exception. I can buy a metal bed frame for $40 at Walmart, or buy ~10 $40 pieces to make my own. It's the price you pay for having flexible parts. The synthesizer world knows this well, where a $3000 modular synthesizer is required to build a patch for a $300 portable synthesizer, although you gain flexibility with the modular version.

kennywinker 8y ago
Pretty sure that’s an economies of scale issue. If the demand for modular was as large as the demand for complete synths, they’d be dirt cheap - but they are essential different products. Though we’ll see how that plays out if behringer ever makes good on their threat to get into modular...
- vortico 8y ago
  I think it has more to do with baseline product overhead. The cost of bringing a single electronic product to market is $50-100/unit + variable amount based on the scale. The solution to make the product cheaper is to offer monolithic functionality in a single unit, with the same baseline overhead. The same is true for assembled "monolithic" bed frames vs. modular aluminum beams, just with different numbers.
  - RossBencina 8y ago
    > The cost of bringing a single electronic product to market is $50-100/unit. The solution to make the product cheaper is to offer monolithic functionality in a single unit Another solution is to reduce the baseline overhead.
    - vortico 8y ago
      Can't. People require a particular amount of support, your marketing costs scale with product sold, and international shipping costs can't get any cheaper. The baseline is not much less for Behringer as it is any reputable modular manufacturer. What they do instead is reduce the parts, manufacturing, and R&D/unit cost, but they're still restricted from going below $50-100/unit even if they could magically clone modules.
      - RossBencina 8y ago
        The point of this article is "making everything ourselves." What you're describing only applies if the traditional manufacturer/sales channel/consumer paradigm is maintained. I'm proposing to think further outside the box than that. For an example of what is possible: you can buy Arduino clone hardware on eBay direct from China much cheaper than anything from authorised suppliers. Any successful "making things ourselves" community (consider Pure Data as an example) is self-supporting and doesn't expect support from manufacturers/creators. Similarly, such a community spreads awareness without marketing investment.
        vortico 8y ago
        You have to buy the aluminum bars, screws, brackets from somewhere. It will always be cheaper for a manufacturer to buy them in bulk at a price much cheaper than you could get them and sell it to you for cheaper than the sum of the parts (at your price).
  - kennywinker 8y ago
    > The cost of bringing a single electronic product to market is $50-100/unit + variable amount based on the scale. that doesn’t seem right... there is an abundance of electronics products priced under $50... are they loosing money on those?
    - vortico 8y ago
      Sorry, I should have specified. Electronics the size, functionality, and build quality of each synthesizer module.

kennywinker 8y ago

Pretty sure that’s an economies of scale issue. If the demand for modular was as large as the demand for complete synths, they’d be dirt cheap - but they are essential different products. Though we’ll see how that plays out if behringer ever makes good on their threat to get into modular...

vortico 8y ago
I think it has more to do with baseline product overhead. The cost of bringing a single electronic product to market is $50-100/unit + variable amount based on the scale. The solution to make the product cheaper is to offer monolithic functionality in a single unit, with the same baseline overhead. The same is true for assembled "monolithic" bed frames vs. modular aluminum beams, just with different numbers.
- RossBencina 8y ago
  > The cost of bringing a single electronic product to market is $50-100/unit. The solution to make the product cheaper is to offer monolithic functionality in a single unit Another solution is to reduce the baseline overhead.
  - vortico 8y ago
    Can't. People require a particular amount of support, your marketing costs scale with product sold, and international shipping costs can't get any cheaper. The baseline is not much less for Behringer as it is any reputable modular manufacturer. What they do instead is reduce the parts, manufacturing, and R&D/unit cost, but they're still restricted from going below $50-100/unit even if they could magically clone modules.
    - RossBencina 8y ago
      The point of this article is "making everything ourselves." What you're describing only applies if the traditional manufacturer/sales channel/consumer paradigm is maintained. I'm proposing to think further outside the box than that. For an example of what is possible: you can buy Arduino clone hardware on eBay direct from China much cheaper than anything from authorised suppliers. Any successful "making things ourselves" community (consider Pure Data as an example) is self-supporting and doesn't expect support from manufacturers/creators. Similarly, such a community spreads awareness without marketing investment.
      - vortico 8y ago
        You have to buy the aluminum bars, screws, brackets from somewhere. It will always be cheaper for a manufacturer to buy them in bulk at a price much cheaper than you could get them and sell it to you for cheaper than the sum of the parts (at your price).
- kennywinker 8y ago
  > The cost of bringing a single electronic product to market is $50-100/unit + variable amount based on the scale. that doesn’t seem right... there is an abundance of electronics products priced under $50... are they loosing money on those?
  - vortico 8y ago
    Sorry, I should have specified. Electronics the size, functionality, and build quality of each synthesizer module.