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Money and time aren't always fungible, but since you consider them additive in your argument lets assume they are for this discussion. Starting software engine

Money and time aren't always fungible, but since you consider them additive in your argument lets assume they are for this discussion. Starting software engineers bill out at $100 an hour. If you spend 5 hours a week reading the news, the total cost per year in terms of your time is $26,000. Thus the cost of the newspaper itself is 1.7% of the overall cost. The claim that a price cut to something that only contributes 1.7% to the total cost is going to make reading the newspaper worth it is ridiculous on its face. The same rebuttal applies for differentiating between newspapers. Also, there is a strong argument to be made that businesses should not be targeting or care about people who think a 1.7% price cut makes a difference.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago
> Money and time aren't always fungible Things don't have to be fungible to be cumulative. > Starting software engineers bill out at $100 an hour. Billing rates are irrelevant because time and money are not fungible. For example, I can read the newspaper on the train for 25 minutes each way, but it isn't possible to productively use that time for much else because of the constraints of the environment, so the value (i.e. opportunity cost) of using that time is much lower than most other times. Also, most New York Times readers are not software developers. The average American hourly wage is less than a quarter of the one you're using. > The claim that a price cut to something that only contributes 1.7% to the total cost is going to make reading the newspaper worth it is ridiculous on its face. Amdahl's law explains why this is wrong. If you pay $2000/month for a mortgage, why squabble over $40/month difference in the interest rate? Because $40/month is $40/month. You gain more by reducing a $2040/month expense to $2000/month (even though it's only a ~2% reduction) than by reducing a $20/month expense to $1/month (even though it's a 95% reduction). The percentage of the total is completely irrelevant.
- timsally 12y ago
  > Amdahl's law explains why this is wrong. Amdahl's law doesn't mean what you think it means; it specifically refutes your position. To spell it out: a 100% reduction in 1.7% of the cost is irrelevant to the total cost despite the fact that 100% is a big number.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    Your argument is that you spend time value equivalent of $2167/month reading the news, so the monetary cost of a subscription is inconsequential in comparison. The point of Amdahl's law is that a small percentage of a large percentage can be just as just as consequential as a large percentage of a small percentage. So because ~$2200/month is such a significant percentage of your total income, reducing it by 1.7% is not irrelevant. $8/week is $8/week regardless of whether it's a small percentage of a large number or a large percentage of a small number.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago

> Money and time aren't always fungible Things don't have to be fungible to be cumulative. > Starting software engineers bill out at $100 an hour. Billing rates are irrelevant because time and money are not fungible. For example, I can read the newspaper on the train for 25 minutes each way, but it isn't possible to productively use that time for much else because of the constraints of the environment, so the value (i.e. opportunity cost) of using that time is much lower than most other times. Also, most New York Times readers are not software developers. The average American hourly wage is less than a quarter of the one you're using. > The claim that a price cut to something that only contributes 1.7% to the total cost is going to make reading the newspaper worth it is ridiculous on its face. Amdahl's law explains why this is wrong. If you pay $2000/month for a mortgage, why squabble over $40/month difference in the interest rate? Because $40/month is $40/month. You gain more by reducing a $2040/month expense to $2000/month (even though it's only a ~2% reduction) than by reducing a $20/month expense to $1/month (even though it's a 95% reduction). The percentage of the total is completely irrelevant.

timsally 12y ago
> Amdahl's law explains why this is wrong. Amdahl's law doesn't mean what you think it means; it specifically refutes your position. To spell it out: a 100% reduction in 1.7% of the cost is irrelevant to the total cost despite the fact that 100% is a big number.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  Your argument is that you spend time value equivalent of $2167/month reading the news, so the monetary cost of a subscription is inconsequential in comparison. The point of Amdahl's law is that a small percentage of a large percentage can be just as just as consequential as a large percentage of a small percentage. So because ~$2200/month is such a significant percentage of your total income, reducing it by 1.7% is not irrelevant. $8/week is $8/week regardless of whether it's a small percentage of a large number or a large percentage of a small number.