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Well of course if everybody spent all that time to find the lowest prices and developed knowledge of pricing we'd stop making money. But they're not going to do
by tdavis 18y ago
Well of course if everybody spent all that time to find the lowest prices and developed knowledge of pricing we'd stop making money. But they're not going to do that, just like everybody isn't going to randomly decide to learn the way air travel works and put Orbitz et. al. out of business.
Even if it cost 10% more to buy a ticket through TicketStumbler, which it doesn't (it costs 0%), it would still be worth it. You have to consider the opportunity cost.
- ojbyrne 18y agoI totally agree and didn't mean it as a criticism in any way. Just that in theory, you're providing a service that lets people convert money (someone's, not sure whose, perhaps completely fanciful) into saved time, and that the article is about you sacrificing time to reduce costs. The vonage example specifically is about that - some slight increase in inconvenience (i.e. lost time) for a cost savings.
- fallentimes 18y agoAh I see. Though with cell phone day time rates being what they are, the slight loss in time is well worth it :).
- ojbyrne 18y agoIt all depends on what your hourly rate is. Both the phone and your time. See the now ancient Bill Gates Wealth Page (http://www.templetons.com/brad/billg.html http://www.templetons.com/brad/billg.html): "Which means that if, on his way into the office, should he see or drop a $1000 bill on the ground, it's just not worth his time to bend over and pick it up. He would make more just heading off to work."
- fallentimes 18y agoI'm a long ways from that.
- mikeyur 18y agoI'd toss Vonage and go for Skype-out, save $11/month :P If you're only calling out from it, skype-out is $3/month or $30/yr and allows unlimited calling to the US/Canada.
- fallentimes 18y agoIn my experience, Skype hasn't been near as reliable.
- mikeyur 18y agoReally? That's odd, I've never had problems with Skype. Worked amazingly even when I was on vacation in Jamaica (sharing a DSL connection with the whole hotel) calling back home to Canada.
- tdavis 18y agoOh, I gotcha. Yeah, we do a number of things to keep costs low in lieu of saving time. This mostly applies to doing certain grunt work that we could pay to have done. If you think of it like "TicketStumbler is for frugal people" and "TicketStumbler is a frugal company" it makes it less ironic, maybe? ;)