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You could have a cable that is unidirectional, with a bidirectional connector. On a $100 motherboard, who cares if the connector raises the price by another 50

You could have a cable that is unidirectional, with a bidirectional connector. On a $100 motherboard, who cares if the connector raises the price by another 50 cents? You can even have a round cable with pins radiating out from the center, and the connector would be concentric circles. Then the plug will always go in no matter what.

JohnFen 7y ago
> On a $100 motherboard, who cares if the connector raises the price by another 50 cents? Manufacturers do. I can't count the number of times that I've seen hardware manufacturers spend four-to-five figures in order to find a way to eliminate a 2 cent part. At scale, even a 2 cent part adds up to serious money.
- iso1210 7y ago
  So why don't they increase the cost of the motherboard by 2 cents and make serious profit?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    Pricing stuff is a very complicated topic, so this is an oversimplification, but... Because people are always looking for the lowest price for things, so manufacturers have a very strong incentive to reduce those prices. If they don't, then people will buy the competitor's gear that costs 2 cents less. In that sort of market, manufacturers won't raise prices for gear unless they have no other option. If they need to get more money out of it (because of cost increases, or because they want a higher profit margin), then the first thing they'll do is find a way to reduce manufacturing costs. Increasing the price is the last thing they'll do.
  - c22 7y ago
    There are a lot of 2 cent parts already on the board.
  - paggle 7y ago
    Because the other guy didn't do that. Capitalism
deaps 7y ago
In some industries that makes sense, and that is what happens. But where prices on parts could change between units, the sale price is often set despite those small changes in build costs. We're talking about an industry that in 2014 included about 600 million units [0] - times maybe 4 USB ports per unit, and we're nearing 2.4 billion USB ports. That money adds up fast. [0] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/* https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-...
fctorial 7y ago
Both port and wire don't need to be bidirectional, it's fine if only one of them is. Making the wire side bidirectional would probably be easier.
tracker1 7y ago
Not just motherboards though.. every USB device, not just the MB... even then, many people have 1 cable per device, so the cost is roughly the same overall. And on a MB, there isn't just one USB port, even most laptops have a couple type A's and one or two type Cs.

JohnFen 7y ago

> On a $100 motherboard, who cares if the connector raises the price by another 50 cents? Manufacturers do. I can't count the number of times that I've seen hardware manufacturers spend four-to-five figures in order to find a way to eliminate a 2 cent part. At scale, even a 2 cent part adds up to serious money.

iso1210 7y ago
So why don't they increase the cost of the motherboard by 2 cents and make serious profit?
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Pricing stuff is a very complicated topic, so this is an oversimplification, but... Because people are always looking for the lowest price for things, so manufacturers have a very strong incentive to reduce those prices. If they don't, then people will buy the competitor's gear that costs 2 cents less. In that sort of market, manufacturers won't raise prices for gear unless they have no other option. If they need to get more money out of it (because of cost increases, or because they want a higher profit margin), then the first thing they'll do is find a way to reduce manufacturing costs. Increasing the price is the last thing they'll do.
- c22 7y ago
  There are a lot of 2 cent parts already on the board.
- paggle 7y ago
  Because the other guy didn't do that. Capitalism

deaps 7y ago

In some industries that makes sense, and that is what happens. But where prices on parts could change between units, the sale price is often set despite those small changes in build costs. We're talking about an industry that in 2014 included about 600 million units [0] - times maybe 4 USB ports per unit, and we're nearing 2.4 billion USB ports. That money adds up fast. [0] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/* https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-...

fctorial 7y ago

Both port and wire don't need to be bidirectional, it's fine if only one of them is. Making the wire side bidirectional would probably be easier.

tracker1 7y ago

Not just motherboards though.. every USB device, not just the MB... even then, many people have 1 cable per device, so the cost is roughly the same overall. And on a MB, there isn't just one USB port, even most laptops have a couple type A's and one or two type Cs.