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> Not sure how long this person has been out of school, but students are notoriously cheap. If you aren't in the US, you wouldn't know, but law students aren't
by KPGv2 2y ago
> Not sure how long this person has been out of school, but students are notoriously cheap.
If you aren't in the US, you wouldn't know, but law students aren't your standard student, and they aren't notoriously cheap. My law school had an overpriced café in the basement that targeted only students, and it was packed with us every day. We're paying for an education well in excess of $100,000 in tuition alone.
My journal kept our office stocked with tons of treats, just like a dot com startup. We were on the top floor of the building, had a good view, had lots of privacy and quiet, a ton of floor space, couches, a TV, etc.
My journal charged $60/yr and had a circulation of around 1500.
I can't remember what the printing cost was, but that's $90,000 in revenue and zero labor costs. Law students do this work for free because it's the second best thing you can have on your job applications aside from graduating at the top of the class.
So yeah, law students could afford a few subscriptions. :)
- elijaht 2y agoI don't agree with this - law students still skew more frugal than white collar adults. Definitely less frugal than undergrads - folks coming from the workforce generally have some savings, and I do think there were more students coming from an affluent background than in undergrad. But the spending pattern of the average student was still quite frugal - housing was almost always student housing, many students did not use a car, most were taking significant loans etc. My wife attended a school ranked ~30th in the US, and was in a leadership position at her school's flagship journal, which was in a dingy room with the only amenity being a microwave. Maybe it looks different at a T14 school, but the vast majority of journal students I know would have balked at a >$10/month subscription like this
- notahacker 2y agoI think the wider point is that, yes, it takes a bit of access to money to be $150k in debt, but when you've got a choice of selling labour-saving stuff to individuals who aren't in work or an adjacent market composed of firms whose hourly rates mean they save the $120 annual subscription cost in about ten minutes...
- brudgers 2y agoBecause lawyer salaries in the US have a bimodal distribution, I would not be surprised if the disposable income of law students does as well. If that's true, then segmenting for one mode or the other might make sense...and conversely just targeting "law students" as a single segment might not. For example, students with money to eat at the high end cafe would tend to expect a high end experience and expect to pay accordingly, while ramen students would seek a value price and accept a less luxurious experience. Or to put it another way, some segments are a choice between bread and cake. Other segments are a choice between bread and nothing.