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Maybe he wants to ensure those who love his pens can get them for a reasonable price? There's a democratic quality to waiting. Maximizing profit is only one way
by pradn 6y ago
Maybe he wants to ensure those who love his pens can get them for a reasonable price? There's a democratic quality to waiting. Maximizing profit is only one way to run a business.
- cambalache 6y agoHow will he avoid the secondary market if that his objective? He will be indirectly exploited and 90% of the earnings will be passed to add-nothing intermediates.
- pkd 6y agoMost people on the waiting list for that long are not going to be buying to flip it. It's not like sneaker flash sales which are copped by bots.
- pradn 6y agoHe gets the good will of reasonable prices while keeping the prestige of long wait times, so from a brand perspective, he's still doing well. He can't prevent scalpers right now. But even if he sold to maximize profits today, people in the future, even in his lifetime, can make super profits off even higher prices. This happens to artists whose earlier work sell for millions, while they see no benefit from those sales, except high prices for newly-produced art.
- OldHand2018 6y agoPerhaps the pen maker could raise prices and offer a discount for personalization.
- blueblisters 6y agoHa that's smart but I could see that getting taken advantage of.
- cbm-vic-20 6y agoLet's see what my friend N. Vidia has to say about this.
- KorematsuFred 6y ago> There's a democratic quality to waiting What does that supposed to even mean ? There is no virtue in needlessly waiting for something in a line. Assigning virtue to such inefficiency is dangerous. I am pretty sure people who are buying his pens would find their time lot more valuable (2 years in this case) than more price.
- snambi 6y agoThe buyer is willing to wait. The buyer is waiting because he likes the pen and don't mind the wait. btw, why is this dangerous?
- KorematsuFred 6y agoBuyers do not have a choice. It is either wait or don't buy. However if you create an auction system, you would know how much these people are willing to wait. > why is this dangerous? Economic inefficiencies lead to wastage. In this case people might put themselves on waiting list only to buy them for $150 and then sell it to someone for $500. The democratic virtue here is thrown out of the window and you have needlessly now employed a middleman who adds no real value to the process but as a remedy to the virtue signaling of the manufacturer. Reminds of all bad things that happened when US government tried to subsidize baby formula.
- bosie 6y agowhat inefficiency and why is it dangerous?
- KorematsuFred 6y agoIf you have an item to sell and if people are willing to pay for it more than the price, if you do not increase the price someone buys it cheap and simply sells it to the highest bidder making a profit. This is a bit like low cost government subsidized housing in bay area. Joe gets it but then rents to Kumar and continue to live as homeless. Now you have subsidized Kumar. It is dangerous in a sense, it assigns virtue to bad economic sense, creates incentives for needless middleman and prevents goods from going to people who really need it.