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You could make it illegal to price discriminate on software sales. I.e, if you sell a piece of software at one unit price to someone, you are obliged to sell wi

You could make it illegal to price discriminate on software sales. I.e, if you sell a piece of software at one unit price to someone, you are obliged to sell with that price to anyone who wants it. Obviously that would disrupt quite a few existing business models in software industry, so do not take that as a completely serious proposal.

eesmith 6y ago
Year ago I remember learning about appliance stores who advertise "lowest prices guaranteed!" More specifically, if you can find another place which sells the same model for less, then you get it for the other price. Thing is, they are the only seller of that model. The vendor has a model X123 for that shop, a model X124 for another place, etc. And that shop is the only one who can sell that specific model. So they of course have the lowest price. Something similar exists for software: that's why there's "home" and "office" and "professional" and "enterprise" and so many other variants. So, your "home" version only supports 2 connections at a time, your "office" one doesn't implement a certain function that "professionals" are more likely to use, and your "enterprise" defaults to logging. Even better, with software you can have a unique product for each sale. All different pieces of software, so all different prices. Then on top of that, you don't sell the software but software + support. And the support costs can vary. Which means I think it's easy to bypass your hypothetical restriction.
- dijit 6y ago
  > More specifically, if you can find another place which sells the same model for less, then you get it for the other price. > Thing is, they are the only seller of that model. The vendor has a model X123 for that shop, a model X124 for another place, etc. And that shop is the only one who can sell that specific model. So they of course have the lowest price. This is endemic in the mattress industry. Products that are identical and manufactured by the same company will be relabelled based on the company that buys them. That's why your "dream-air luxury liner" could not get a discount because the other company has a "dream-air luxury comfort", which is the same exact product.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    What timing - Not Always Right, at https://notalwaysright.com/thats-how-they-price-catch-you-out/194244/ https://notalwaysright.com/thats-how-they-price-catch-you-ou... just posted a story about TV models which were off-by-one. Several people in the comments pointed out the same technique.

eesmith 6y ago

Year ago I remember learning about appliance stores who advertise "lowest prices guaranteed!" More specifically, if you can find another place which sells the same model for less, then you get it for the other price. Thing is, they are the only seller of that model. The vendor has a model X123 for that shop, a model X124 for another place, etc. And that shop is the only one who can sell that specific model. So they of course have the lowest price. Something similar exists for software: that's why there's "home" and "office" and "professional" and "enterprise" and so many other variants. So, your "home" version only supports 2 connections at a time, your "office" one doesn't implement a certain function that "professionals" are more likely to use, and your "enterprise" defaults to logging. Even better, with software you can have a unique product for each sale. All different pieces of software, so all different prices. Then on top of that, you don't sell the software but software + support. And the support costs can vary. Which means I think it's easy to bypass your hypothetical restriction.

dijit 6y ago
> More specifically, if you can find another place which sells the same model for less, then you get it for the other price. > Thing is, they are the only seller of that model. The vendor has a model X123 for that shop, a model X124 for another place, etc. And that shop is the only one who can sell that specific model. So they of course have the lowest price. This is endemic in the mattress industry. Products that are identical and manufactured by the same company will be relabelled based on the company that buys them. That's why your "dream-air luxury liner" could not get a discount because the other company has a "dream-air luxury comfort", which is the same exact product.
- eesmith 6y ago
  What timing - Not Always Right, at https://notalwaysright.com/thats-how-they-price-catch-you-out/194244/ https://notalwaysright.com/thats-how-they-price-catch-you-ou... just posted a story about TV models which were off-by-one. Several people in the comments pointed out the same technique.