4 ms·

I would actually have bought it for 5$, but seeing 15$ for the download is kind of a bummer. Louis CK (a pretty well known comedian with his own TV shows) char

by rb2k_ 14y ago

I would actually have bought it for 5$, but seeing 15$ for the download is kind of a bummer. Louis CK (a pretty well known comedian with his own TV shows) charged 5$ for his evening special in a hassle/drm-free HD download and was pretty successful with it. I am not quite sure where the sweet spot is, but I think they might be able to reach a broader audience for 5$ :-/

dashN9ne 14y ago
As a point of data, I would pay $8 for this as someone that has never read PhD comics before. Looks fun.
lrem 14y ago
That's funny. The price for me is 10$... And usually we get things more expensive in Europe.
- rb2k_ 14y ago
  I'm from Europe (Germany) too, and the streaming is 10$. The "optional download" is an additional 5$
eavc 14y ago
Maybe, but they can always do that down the line. At the moment, they have a dedicated audience that will gladly pay $15.
- jamesrcole 14y ago
  There's always going to be dedicated people who will pay a particular price. But how many are there? Isn't the question really: what is the sweet spot, where you get the highest total for 'number of purchasers'*'the price'?
  - drostie 14y ago
    Well, no. Given your number of customers as a function of price D(p), you aren't necessarily trying to maximize p D(p). It's not completely obvious, but in principle you can get ∫ D(p) dp out of those people, if everyone paid what they were willing to pay. In order to pursue this goal it is very common to make a finer approximation to ∫ D(p) dp by creating several price-points. You see this all the time on Kickstarter for example, "donate some extra and we'll send you a copy of the source code." And one of these ways is "donate some extra and you'll get to see the finished product first," which is one of the solutions given above: charge $15 when it first comes out, then reduce to $5 over time.
    - jakobe 14y ago
      That's the theory. In practice, people who think that $15 are too much, will either forget about it (and not come back when its cheaper), or they will pirate it.
      - shasta 14y ago
        That's not practice. It's just your theory. I dislike this rhetorical device.
        jakobe 14y ago
        In practice my theory is right.
      - drostie 14y ago
        (1) As for forgetting, well, good companies often market their price reductions. I mean, famously, Apple released two iPhones in 2007, a 4GB one at $500 and an 8GB one at $600, and rapidly killed the first and reduced the second to $400, after about two months. It made a terrific marketing splash, lots of people bought the $400 one. Granted, this sort of marketing is easy for them because they're Apple and everybody is always listening for news on them, but my point is just that "we're reducing our price!" can be a subject worthy of a new press release and a new Hacker News bump. You may also remember that so many people criticized them for the above, that Apple gave away $100 certificates to the people who bought at the $600 price point. There is a valid criticism of what I have said above which nobody has yet mentioned: which is that people like to get a "good deal" and think of you better as a company if you provide that to them. As you try to extract out ∫ D(p) dp from people, you are also squeezing a commensurate amount of happiness out of them, and that can be bad for long-term customers. (2) The top isoHunt torrent lists 20-ish torrenters, so I'm not sure whether piracy is a valid concern on this matter.
- droithomme 14y ago
  > At the moment, they have a dedicated audience that will gladly pay $15. And when they lower the price the other 99.9% of potential viewers will have forgotten all about it and lost interest.
sp332 14y ago
There were more people working on this movie for a lot more time than Louis CK's evening special. Plus, they don't have such high visibility, so they need to make their money back on a lot fewer customers.

by rb2k_ 14y ago

dashN9ne 14y ago

As a point of data, I would pay $8 for this as someone that has never read PhD comics before. Looks fun.

lrem 14y ago

That's funny. The price for me is 10$... And usually we get things more expensive in Europe.

rb2k_ 14y ago
I'm from Europe (Germany) too, and the streaming is 10$. The "optional download" is an additional 5$

eavc 14y ago

Maybe, but they can always do that down the line. At the moment, they have a dedicated audience that will gladly pay $15.

jamesrcole 14y ago
There's always going to be dedicated people who will pay a particular price. But how many are there? Isn't the question really: what is the sweet spot, where you get the highest total for 'number of purchasers'*'the price'?
- drostie 14y ago
  Well, no. Given your number of customers as a function of price D(p), you aren't necessarily trying to maximize p D(p). It's not completely obvious, but in principle you can get ∫ D(p) dp out of those people, if everyone paid what they were willing to pay. In order to pursue this goal it is very common to make a finer approximation to ∫ D(p) dp by creating several price-points. You see this all the time on Kickstarter for example, "donate some extra and we'll send you a copy of the source code." And one of these ways is "donate some extra and you'll get to see the finished product first," which is one of the solutions given above: charge $15 when it first comes out, then reduce to $5 over time.
  - jakobe 14y ago
    That's the theory. In practice, people who think that $15 are too much, will either forget about it (and not come back when its cheaper), or they will pirate it.
    - shasta 14y ago
      That's not practice. It's just your theory. I dislike this rhetorical device.
      - jakobe 14y ago
        In practice my theory is right.
    - drostie 14y ago
      (1) As for forgetting, well, good companies often market their price reductions. I mean, famously, Apple released two iPhones in 2007, a 4GB one at $500 and an 8GB one at $600, and rapidly killed the first and reduced the second to $400, after about two months. It made a terrific marketing splash, lots of people bought the $400 one. Granted, this sort of marketing is easy for them because they're Apple and everybody is always listening for news on them, but my point is just that "we're reducing our price!" can be a subject worthy of a new press release and a new Hacker News bump. You may also remember that so many people criticized them for the above, that Apple gave away $100 certificates to the people who bought at the $600 price point. There is a valid criticism of what I have said above which nobody has yet mentioned: which is that people like to get a "good deal" and think of you better as a company if you provide that to them. As you try to extract out ∫ D(p) dp from people, you are also squeezing a commensurate amount of happiness out of them, and that can be bad for long-term customers. (2) The top isoHunt torrent lists 20-ish torrenters, so I'm not sure whether piracy is a valid concern on this matter.
droithomme 14y ago
> At the moment, they have a dedicated audience that will gladly pay $15. And when they lower the price the other 99.9% of potential viewers will have forgotten all about it and lost interest.

sp332 14y ago

There were more people working on this movie for a lot more time than Louis CK's evening special. Plus, they don't have such high visibility, so they need to make their money back on a lot fewer customers.