4 ms·

One of the things I have learned about business is that if you have customers willing to pay very high prices you should offer something with those prices.

jchw 5y ago
Definitely rings true of tech enthusiast niches. Mechanical keyboards and retrocomputing may not offer huge volume, but it can probably offer fat margin.
- efitz 5y ago
  It's true in almost all commercial transactions. A price is a message communicating the value of the thing to potential buyers. Also, value is subjective. Anecdote: I used to work for a large software company. A long time ago they had a product which had a competitive feature set to the industry leaders in the space, but was a poor seller. It turns out that the price was so low (<10% of the market leader) that potential customers assumed that it was not a serious competitor. Raising the price significantly boosted sales. Years ago I owned a boat. Everything for boats is more expensive than equivalent non-marine items. At first I thought that was because designing things for marine environments required better materials and engineering. Then I realized that most people who own boats are at least moderately well-off, and that the price was what they were willing to pay, not what it cost to manufacture. This taught me that if I ever start a business, I will target rich people.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    According to hacker news, rich people don't have any money. They only have stocks.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  It is much less of a focus now, but I for a long time I wanted to have a business that made me a lot of money. I always focused on trying to make useful stuff, but I sure did wonder about making decent stuff and throwing in a bunch of marketing to charge 10X the normal price! It is one interesting strategy. But then I learned business is SUPER hard (especially starting from zero) and I make great money doing engineering!
- tialaramex 5y ago
  An important distinction is that the mechanical keyboard and retro computers actually are meaningfully different. If I take a cheap mass-produced keyboard, like the "China Resource Semico Co., Ltd Keyboard" plugged into this random desktop PC, and I put it in a nice box and tell you it costs $500, presumably people who buy expensive mechanical keyboards would notice that the keycaps are cheap plastic with stickers, there are no mechanical switches and so it doesn't have the right "feel" and so on. It costs $500 because that's what I charged, but most people don't believe it's worth $500. I was looking to sort out a good keyboard and then the pandemic started, and so I just bought the cheapest product I could source very locally (from a supermarket about 5 minutes walk) rather than incur additional risks or delays. And of course this keyboard does work so the impetus to buy a good keyboard receded. But I'm under no illusions that it's just as good, the letters A, C, E, L, N, O, and S are already rubbing off and the left shift key is already significantly worn because they used a cheap plastic! The problem with situations like this "Audiophile approved" cable is that it isn't even meaningfully different let alone better. Unfortunately in a society that loves Veblen goods this is hardly the exception.
  - jchw 5y ago
    This is absolutely true, but I do not think it is merely limited to audiophile gear. The thing is, I don’t think overpriced audiophile gear is really that awful, its just awful value. The adage that there are no bad products, only bad prices is obviously flawed, BUT, sometimes it really is just bad prices. This cable is probably pretty good. For the price, it ought to be, because even the best cable money can buy would probably leave a fat margin at this price. Likewise, good mechanical keyboards can sell for a lot. Thousands. It’s no freakin joke. Maybe the prices haven’t gotten as meaninglessly inflated as audiophile gear, but it’s in a similar order of magnitude imo. We’re only talking about the extremes after all; a good pair of Audio Technicas is never going to be a ripoff, but that doesn’t mean someone around the corner isn’t trying to sell snake oil. Maybe audiophile gear really is different, but if it is I suspect it has something to do with the audience its marketed for and where the money comes from rather than an inherent difference in the markets.
    - tialaramex 5y ago
- the_only_law 5y ago
  Retrocomputing is horrid because every idiot things their worthless crap is worth something. I can’t tell you how many “unknown soviet terminal keyboard” I’ve seen people ask hundreds of dollars for.
  - jchw 5y ago
    I hate the prices on rare items, that stuff sucks. The price of things is far above what people should be willing to pay, but sellers have no incentive to sell for less and buyers have no choice if they ever want to mess with old computers. Frankly, old Japanese computers are easier to get a decent deal on because for one reason or another, Yahoo! Japan Auctions tends to give pretty damn fair prices. What I’m talking about though is actually not the second-hand market, but the very interesting market of making new retro-computing goods. TexElec has some good examples of said things; accessories or expansions for old computers, or hell, sometimes even successors or recreations of them, like the Vampire V4 standalone, which from my reading is meant to be a successor to the Amiga 4000. There’s always emulator boxes like the “mini” consoles that have been popular, but frankly I think those have firmly left “niche” territory by now, and only some of them are marketed at the niche. Nowadays the niche markets seem much more palatable to more expensive, but somewhat more versatile FPGA based emulation. (Well, maybe that’s not fair; software emulation can do things FPGA based emulation can not, but FPGA based emulation can do things that software emulation can’t do either, and you can already get software emulation on most computers, phones, and game consoles anyways. It definitely adds some value for being unique.)
normaler 5y ago
there is an outdoor knife company which mostly uses well tempered 1095 steel for their products. People bombard them with requeata for Gucci steel like SV-30 which is ill suited for their applications. Under description https://eseeknives.com/product/esee-3-s35v https://eseeknives.com/product/esee-3-s35v
- mjb 5y ago
  I do think people are a little silly about knife steel, but in this case I'd love to see the company's test results backing up their strong statement. At 60HRC, S30V should have (according to the data sheet) similar toughness and impact resistance to 1095 at 57HRC. So for the price you're getting a little extra hardness, a lot of extra edge retention, and much better corrosion resistance. Now, you sure could say that isn't worth it in this application. But this stuff is very real and measurable (unlike the HiFi nonsense). The crazy stuff in knife steel is often the other way: folks picking stuff like White #2, and caring only about hardness, and ending up with something they think is high end but performs quite badly on objective tests.
remus 5y ago
It may make good business but it doesn't feel very moral to deceive people into spending money they don't need to.
- icambron 5y ago
  Sometimes people just want to spend money on something they’re passionate about. How good the ROI is doesn’t matter to them, so you’re not really deceiving them
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I am okay letting wealthy people spend too much money, but my big issue is that it doesn't feel like a good contribution to society, just a money grab. And if I am going to put my time and energy in to something, I want it to actually offer real value. Which is why I am actually spinning up a non profit that offers all of our work as open source. But it was always interesting to me that very wealthy people will drop huge sums without much thought. You're right tho that a few people trying to "spend their way to the top" will get caught spending more than they can afford and drawing those people in feels particularly immoral.
  - aeonik 5y ago
    I'm not rich, but I do spend too much money on certain products on purpose. The reason I do it is because I love the engineer's or artist's work so much that I want to support them more than typical low margin product purchases would allow. I don't think they are being deceptive, and I don't feel swindled... as long as they aren't lying about the product specs or the capabilities.
- imtringued 5y ago
  You are right but it could be true on the other side as well. These people earning money they don't need to.

jchw 5y ago

Definitely rings true of tech enthusiast niches. Mechanical keyboards and retrocomputing may not offer huge volume, but it can probably offer fat margin.

efitz 5y ago
It's true in almost all commercial transactions. A price is a message communicating the value of the thing to potential buyers. Also, value is subjective. Anecdote: I used to work for a large software company. A long time ago they had a product which had a competitive feature set to the industry leaders in the space, but was a poor seller. It turns out that the price was so low (<10% of the market leader) that potential customers assumed that it was not a serious competitor. Raising the price significantly boosted sales. Years ago I owned a boat. Everything for boats is more expensive than equivalent non-marine items. At first I thought that was because designing things for marine environments required better materials and engineering. Then I realized that most people who own boats are at least moderately well-off, and that the price was what they were willing to pay, not what it cost to manufacture. This taught me that if I ever start a business, I will target rich people.
- imtringued 5y ago
  According to hacker news, rich people don't have any money. They only have stocks.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
It is much less of a focus now, but I for a long time I wanted to have a business that made me a lot of money. I always focused on trying to make useful stuff, but I sure did wonder about making decent stuff and throwing in a bunch of marketing to charge 10X the normal price! It is one interesting strategy. But then I learned business is SUPER hard (especially starting from zero) and I make great money doing engineering!
tialaramex 5y ago
An important distinction is that the mechanical keyboard and retro computers actually are meaningfully different. If I take a cheap mass-produced keyboard, like the "China Resource Semico Co., Ltd Keyboard" plugged into this random desktop PC, and I put it in a nice box and tell you it costs $500, presumably people who buy expensive mechanical keyboards would notice that the keycaps are cheap plastic with stickers, there are no mechanical switches and so it doesn't have the right "feel" and so on. It costs $500 because that's what I charged, but most people don't believe it's worth $500. I was looking to sort out a good keyboard and then the pandemic started, and so I just bought the cheapest product I could source very locally (from a supermarket about 5 minutes walk) rather than incur additional risks or delays. And of course this keyboard does work so the impetus to buy a good keyboard receded. But I'm under no illusions that it's just as good, the letters A, C, E, L, N, O, and S are already rubbing off and the left shift key is already significantly worn because they used a cheap plastic! The problem with situations like this "Audiophile approved" cable is that it isn't even meaningfully different let alone better. Unfortunately in a society that loves Veblen goods this is hardly the exception.
- jchw 5y ago
  This is absolutely true, but I do not think it is merely limited to audiophile gear. The thing is, I don’t think overpriced audiophile gear is really that awful, its just awful value. The adage that there are no bad products, only bad prices is obviously flawed, BUT, sometimes it really is just bad prices. This cable is probably pretty good. For the price, it ought to be, because even the best cable money can buy would probably leave a fat margin at this price. Likewise, good mechanical keyboards can sell for a lot. Thousands. It’s no freakin joke. Maybe the prices haven’t gotten as meaninglessly inflated as audiophile gear, but it’s in a similar order of magnitude imo. We’re only talking about the extremes after all; a good pair of Audio Technicas is never going to be a ripoff, but that doesn’t mean someone around the corner isn’t trying to sell snake oil. Maybe audiophile gear really is different, but if it is I suspect it has something to do with the audience its marketed for and where the money comes from rather than an inherent difference in the markets.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
the_only_law 5y ago
Retrocomputing is horrid because every idiot things their worthless crap is worth something. I can’t tell you how many “unknown soviet terminal keyboard” I’ve seen people ask hundreds of dollars for.
- jchw 5y ago
  I hate the prices on rare items, that stuff sucks. The price of things is far above what people should be willing to pay, but sellers have no incentive to sell for less and buyers have no choice if they ever want to mess with old computers. Frankly, old Japanese computers are easier to get a decent deal on because for one reason or another, Yahoo! Japan Auctions tends to give pretty damn fair prices. What I’m talking about though is actually not the second-hand market, but the very interesting market of making new retro-computing goods. TexElec has some good examples of said things; accessories or expansions for old computers, or hell, sometimes even successors or recreations of them, like the Vampire V4 standalone, which from my reading is meant to be a successor to the Amiga 4000. There’s always emulator boxes like the “mini” consoles that have been popular, but frankly I think those have firmly left “niche” territory by now, and only some of them are marketed at the niche. Nowadays the niche markets seem much more palatable to more expensive, but somewhat more versatile FPGA based emulation. (Well, maybe that’s not fair; software emulation can do things FPGA based emulation can not, but FPGA based emulation can do things that software emulation can’t do either, and you can already get software emulation on most computers, phones, and game consoles anyways. It definitely adds some value for being unique.)

normaler 5y ago

there is an outdoor knife company which mostly uses well tempered 1095 steel for their products. People bombard them with requeata for Gucci steel like SV-30 which is ill suited for their applications. Under description https://eseeknives.com/product/esee-3-s35v https://eseeknives.com/product/esee-3-s35v

mjb 5y ago
I do think people are a little silly about knife steel, but in this case I'd love to see the company's test results backing up their strong statement. At 60HRC, S30V should have (according to the data sheet) similar toughness and impact resistance to 1095 at 57HRC. So for the price you're getting a little extra hardness, a lot of extra edge retention, and much better corrosion resistance. Now, you sure could say that isn't worth it in this application. But this stuff is very real and measurable (unlike the HiFi nonsense). The crazy stuff in knife steel is often the other way: folks picking stuff like White #2, and caring only about hardness, and ending up with something they think is high end but performs quite badly on objective tests.

remus 5y ago

It may make good business but it doesn't feel very moral to deceive people into spending money they don't need to.

icambron 5y ago
Sometimes people just want to spend money on something they’re passionate about. How good the ROI is doesn’t matter to them, so you’re not really deceiving them
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
I am okay letting wealthy people spend too much money, but my big issue is that it doesn't feel like a good contribution to society, just a money grab. And if I am going to put my time and energy in to something, I want it to actually offer real value. Which is why I am actually spinning up a non profit that offers all of our work as open source. But it was always interesting to me that very wealthy people will drop huge sums without much thought. You're right tho that a few people trying to "spend their way to the top" will get caught spending more than they can afford and drawing those people in feels particularly immoral.
- aeonik 5y ago
  I'm not rich, but I do spend too much money on certain products on purpose. The reason I do it is because I love the engineer's or artist's work so much that I want to support them more than typical low margin product purchases would allow. I don't think they are being deceptive, and I don't feel swindled... as long as they aren't lying about the product specs or the capabilities.
imtringued 5y ago
You are right but it could be true on the other side as well. These people earning money they don't need to.