7 ms·

Sorry for the meta-discussion (which I know is against the guidelines), but I'm finding it really hard to respond kindly to your comment, given the overarching

Sorry for the meta-discussion (which I know is against the guidelines), but I'm finding it really hard to respond kindly to your comment, given the overarching tone ("no respect", "hard to swallow", sarcasm about parts, "shitty pricing"). I'd love to engage with you on the merits of pricing for what the market will bear, CoGS including software and craftsmanship, etc, but I am not able. Perhaps that's my failing, but I'd like to encourage you to be less acerbic in the future.

smoldesu 6y ago
If my tone comes off as "acerbic", I guess I'm a little surprised. I love Teenage Engineering (and own a few Pocket Operators too), but I gotta call them out on the pricing issue here. When the price of the OP-1 did start to skyrocket in 2012, Teenage Engineering said absolutely nothing, and then discontinued it in 2013, sending the secondhand market soaring again. Of course, their response is to put it back into production at a higher cost, for more customers. You can slice this any way you want, but there's not really an excuse for an all-digital synth to increase in price like that. I have no doubts that a simple redesign could bring the BOM down to sub-$200, even in 2015. Failing that, they could have taken the re-release as an opportunity to fix some of the issues in the original model: give it a sensible charging port, improve the microphone quality, or even improving the sample transfer software. None of these issues were ever addressed. The insult added to injury is the OP-Z, a "successor" that was designed to be inferior to it's predecessor, as not to cannibalize it's market. Maybe I am hateful, but Teenage Engineering has definitely had a fall from grace. Even their recent modular kits left a bad taste in my mouth...
- zokier 6y ago
  Why do you think the BOM cost should have any relation to the selling price? > You can slice this any way you want, but there's not really an excuse for an all-digital synth to increase in price like that Adjusting to market bearing price seems like a good excuse to me.
  - smoldesu 6y ago
    Whatever justifies it for you. For every extra dollar they eke out of bougie hipster, they ostracize people like me who would definitely buy one if it was $500 or $600
    - blairbeckwith 6y ago
      Companies are under no obligation to not ostracize potential customers. Do you also think that luxury car companies are shitty and ridiculous because they charge more than cars that "do the same thing"?
      - monkmartinez 6y ago
        I do, but I am admittedly a small sample. A case can certainly be made that luxury cars, in general, are not very "good" cars in most metrics as by which the industry measures what a "good" car should be. I think OP has a valid point, if the synth Teenage is selling is inferior and more expensive but sells because "status" and signaling.
        blairbeckwith 6y ago
        But they do sell, and Lamborghini or Porsche are not under any obligation to make a cheap car so that everyone who wants one can afford one, nor should they.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - zokier 6y ago
      Why do you feel entitled to be able to buy it at price point that suits you?
      - monkmartinez 6y ago
        I didn't get a sense of entitlement. I see someone frustrated with features for price, then calling it out as non-sensical. I like when people do that frankly. Is it judgey? You bet, and its ok to have an opinion on the matter!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thenewwazoo 6y ago
  There are schools of (microeconomic) thought that would encourage them to raise prices even further in order to reduce demand to match their supply capability. If the second-hand market prices a good higher than the original seller, that's a very clear signal to increase the price. At least that way the profits end up in the manufacturer's pocket (which they can use to increase volume) instead of a speculator's. That is all to say, their raising prices is ethical, legal, and moral. You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. Even absent the above, it makes perfect sense that they could be losing money on a product, and then re-introduce it at a higher price so they stop losing money. Now, should they have been losing money at the lower price point? You talk a lot about CoGS, but that completely neglects things like design and development time. The OP-1 is, by all accounts, extremely well-designed and built. Economies of scale let companies like Apple pick lower margins because that R&D time is amortized over a huge number of devices manufactured. Boutique operations can't do that. All that still ignores squishier questions like choosing to keep a price point in order to fund other projects (that may never be built) with increasing margins over time, or hell, I dunno, paying bigger bonuses to employees. Clearly people are willing to pay it, and they're under no obligation to price their goods according to any objective thing at all. Maybe the CEO is a mystic and likes the numerology of the new price better.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - brandonmenc 6y ago
    > You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. This is typical behavior of a certain large class of musicians, particularly electronic ones. The message boards are full of people complaining that these companies charge "too much." They will also then complain that Behringer sucks for "stealing" ideas and pricing them affordably. Meanwhile, it has never been cheaper to buy music equipment and software. And there are tons of high quality free software out there. I would hesitate to enter into the business of selling music software or hardware. It seems pretty thankless.
- type0 6y ago
  > Even their recent modular kits left a bad taste in my mouth... Their modular is ridiculous, I can't imagine what they were thinking.
- koolhaas 6y ago
  > I have no doubts that a simple redesign could bring the BOM down to sub-$200 lol gotta love armchair HN
Marazan 6y ago
I've no problem with a company pricing a product to be what the market will bear. However, Teenage Engineering claiming they were jacking the price due to "supply issues" is just insulting.
- mwfunk 6y ago
  I haven't heard about this. Were they busted lying about supply chain issues as an excuse to raise prices? Their stuff is pricey but cool, but if it's documented that they lied about that, that would be hard to get past.
  - voxrumor 6y ago
    They have talked about it some, seemed reasonable. Also understand why it would not be a popular decision though. Think running a business, and understanding success can be very temporary if you are not careful helps. "We have had to face other costs than the actual components’ costs of course. The currency conversion, inflation, sourcing of the new component, re-coding the display, re-designing the mounting, new tools etc. are just a few of the “why”. When Teenage Engineering faced the reality of the OP-1’s future, there were only 2 choices: kill or save. We decided to save it. I understand that the new price is a disappointment to many of our fans. But I do hope some are happy that we did not kill it." https://www.gearnews.com/teenage-engineering-open-up-about-the-op-1-price-hike/ https://www.gearnews.com/teenage-engineering-open-up-about-t...
    - mwfunk 6y ago
      That seems unfortunate but reasonable. I don’t begrudge anyone making that choice, and I don’t begrudge anyone thinking their prices are too high (and I don’t begrudge anyone buying their stuff anyway because they think something’s cool). I was way more concerned about the claim that they lied about it and were scamming their customers somehow, but so far there’s no evidence of that.
- bsder 6y ago
  I would have agreed with you, but sourcing OLED displays is a pain in the ass. I've been personally bitten by this. So, if they bought a 1000 obsolete displays and burned through them, it may actually take an act of God to get more. And you'll probably have to redesign your circuits.
coldtea 6y ago
>I'd love to engage with you on the merits of pricing for what the market will bear Well, there's also the level of pricing and milking it that poorer consumers will tolerate without hating the company, so there's that...

smoldesu 6y ago

If my tone comes off as "acerbic", I guess I'm a little surprised. I love Teenage Engineering (and own a few Pocket Operators too), but I gotta call them out on the pricing issue here. When the price of the OP-1 did start to skyrocket in 2012, Teenage Engineering said absolutely nothing, and then discontinued it in 2013, sending the secondhand market soaring again. Of course, their response is to put it back into production at a higher cost, for more customers. You can slice this any way you want, but there's not really an excuse for an all-digital synth to increase in price like that. I have no doubts that a simple redesign could bring the BOM down to sub-$200, even in 2015. Failing that, they could have taken the re-release as an opportunity to fix some of the issues in the original model: give it a sensible charging port, improve the microphone quality, or even improving the sample transfer software. None of these issues were ever addressed. The insult added to injury is the OP-Z, a "successor" that was designed to be inferior to it's predecessor, as not to cannibalize it's market. Maybe I am hateful, but Teenage Engineering has definitely had a fall from grace. Even their recent modular kits left a bad taste in my mouth...

zokier 6y ago
Why do you think the BOM cost should have any relation to the selling price? > You can slice this any way you want, but there's not really an excuse for an all-digital synth to increase in price like that Adjusting to market bearing price seems like a good excuse to me.
- smoldesu 6y ago
  Whatever justifies it for you. For every extra dollar they eke out of bougie hipster, they ostracize people like me who would definitely buy one if it was $500 or $600
  - blairbeckwith 6y ago
    Companies are under no obligation to not ostracize potential customers. Do you also think that luxury car companies are shitty and ridiculous because they charge more than cars that "do the same thing"?
    - monkmartinez 6y ago
      I do, but I am admittedly a small sample. A case can certainly be made that luxury cars, in general, are not very "good" cars in most metrics as by which the industry measures what a "good" car should be. I think OP has a valid point, if the synth Teenage is selling is inferior and more expensive but sells because "status" and signaling.
      - blairbeckwith 6y ago
        But they do sell, and Lamborghini or Porsche are not under any obligation to make a cheap car so that everyone who wants one can afford one, nor should they.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - zokier 6y ago
    Why do you feel entitled to be able to buy it at price point that suits you?
    - monkmartinez 6y ago
      I didn't get a sense of entitlement. I see someone frustrated with features for price, then calling it out as non-sensical. I like when people do that frankly. Is it judgey? You bet, and its ok to have an opinion on the matter!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thenewwazoo 6y ago
There are schools of (microeconomic) thought that would encourage them to raise prices even further in order to reduce demand to match their supply capability. If the second-hand market prices a good higher than the original seller, that's a very clear signal to increase the price. At least that way the profits end up in the manufacturer's pocket (which they can use to increase volume) instead of a speculator's. That is all to say, their raising prices is ethical, legal, and moral. You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. Even absent the above, it makes perfect sense that they could be losing money on a product, and then re-introduce it at a higher price so they stop losing money. Now, should they have been losing money at the lower price point? You talk a lot about CoGS, but that completely neglects things like design and development time. The OP-1 is, by all accounts, extremely well-designed and built. Economies of scale let companies like Apple pick lower margins because that R&D time is amortized over a huge number of devices manufactured. Boutique operations can't do that. All that still ignores squishier questions like choosing to keep a price point in order to fund other projects (that may never be built) with increasing margins over time, or hell, I dunno, paying bigger bonuses to employees. Clearly people are willing to pay it, and they're under no obligation to price their goods according to any objective thing at all. Maybe the CEO is a mystic and likes the numerology of the new price better.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- brandonmenc 6y ago
  > You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. This is typical behavior of a certain large class of musicians, particularly electronic ones. The message boards are full of people complaining that these companies charge "too much." They will also then complain that Behringer sucks for "stealing" ideas and pricing them affordably. Meanwhile, it has never been cheaper to buy music equipment and software. And there are tons of high quality free software out there. I would hesitate to enter into the business of selling music software or hardware. It seems pretty thankless.
type0 6y ago
> Even their recent modular kits left a bad taste in my mouth... Their modular is ridiculous, I can't imagine what they were thinking.
koolhaas 6y ago
> I have no doubts that a simple redesign could bring the BOM down to sub-$200 lol gotta love armchair HN

Marazan 6y ago

I've no problem with a company pricing a product to be what the market will bear. However, Teenage Engineering claiming they were jacking the price due to "supply issues" is just insulting.

mwfunk 6y ago
I haven't heard about this. Were they busted lying about supply chain issues as an excuse to raise prices? Their stuff is pricey but cool, but if it's documented that they lied about that, that would be hard to get past.
- voxrumor 6y ago
  They have talked about it some, seemed reasonable. Also understand why it would not be a popular decision though. Think running a business, and understanding success can be very temporary if you are not careful helps. "We have had to face other costs than the actual components’ costs of course. The currency conversion, inflation, sourcing of the new component, re-coding the display, re-designing the mounting, new tools etc. are just a few of the “why”. When Teenage Engineering faced the reality of the OP-1’s future, there were only 2 choices: kill or save. We decided to save it. I understand that the new price is a disappointment to many of our fans. But I do hope some are happy that we did not kill it." https://www.gearnews.com/teenage-engineering-open-up-about-the-op-1-price-hike/ https://www.gearnews.com/teenage-engineering-open-up-about-t...
  - mwfunk 6y ago
    That seems unfortunate but reasonable. I don’t begrudge anyone making that choice, and I don’t begrudge anyone thinking their prices are too high (and I don’t begrudge anyone buying their stuff anyway because they think something’s cool). I was way more concerned about the claim that they lied about it and were scamming their customers somehow, but so far there’s no evidence of that.
bsder 6y ago
I would have agreed with you, but sourcing OLED displays is a pain in the ass. I've been personally bitten by this. So, if they bought a 1000 obsolete displays and burned through them, it may actually take an act of God to get more. And you'll probably have to redesign your circuits.

coldtea 6y ago

>I'd love to engage with you on the merits of pricing for what the market will bear Well, there's also the level of pricing and milking it that poorer consumers will tolerate without hating the company, so there's that...