Re: Nibbles Magazines ISO

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <p27Ye.705$G64.302@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>,
Shawn B. <leabre@html.com> wrote:
>> I agree with you about the price (although I would only be willing to
>> pay some $30 for it), but not about your motivation.  Do you really only
>> care about how rare the item is and not about how useful it is to
>> you when you decide how much you're willing to pay for it?
>
>I'd be willing to pay $30... but I'm willing to pay more.  Just not the
>asking price.
>
>> Assume this DVD was heavily copy protected so nobody could copy its
>> contents.  And suppose no-one could even read its contents.  Next,
>> suppose only one copy of that DVD existed, and that the original data
>> had been destroyed and could not be recreated without a substantial
>> amount of work.  Finally suppose this unique DVD was in excellent
>> codition.
>
>Well, that is a different situation.  If it was important, and unclonable,
>and the only one in existance, and important to me...

...and unreadable.  I.e. a collectors item you could use for nothing but
showing off to your friends, and yourself.

>I'd suppose I'd have a
>different take.  Of course, I'm talking about something different.  Perhaps
>my rationale is a little off-base, but, when I think about it, I just can't
>help but thinking to myself that the price is too high for something that
>has substantially lower production costs.

I see -- you're focused on the production costs.

Welcome to the market!  There the price can be quite independent on
the production costs.  Instead it's dependent on what people are
willing to pay for the item.  Items in high demand can sell for prices
way above the production costs (e.g. real estate on Manhattan island, NYC).
And items in low demand sell way below the production costs (e.g. old
Apple II computers) - if that's the case, production of course stops if
it hasn't stopped already.

>I feel "gouged", and that is
>enough to prevent me from caring enough to fork over my cash.  It doesn't
>matter whether it is a realistic price and I'm not being "gouged" in
>reality, but I feel that way and thats what matters to me.  There is nothing
>in his offering that I can't do without.

:-) ...that is indeed true, for all of us.  It's a nostalgic luxury item.

>> If so, that DVD would be a very rare, but useless, item.  How much would
>> you be willing to pay for such a DVD?  $140?  $300?  More?  Less?
>
>I don't know.  I paid $5,000 for a Sony Playstation 2 Developer system and
>tools and a few nice perks, on Ebay.  I paid $450 for a Net Yaroze (that the
>seller omitted the SDK disk) so had to pay another $560 to win another
>auction just to get that disk.  Those are worth something to me, personally.
>They offer me something that I greatly care about.  The satisfaction I can
>derive from them is intense.  But Nibble magazine isn't worth that much to
>me.  I paid $300 for all the hardcopy editions.  That is reasonable to me.
>Even if I had known about the DVD at the time I was ready to purchase the
>hardcopies on Ebay, I probly would not have settled for paying half price
>for the DVD.  The phychological effect it has on me is weird.  It just isn't
>worth it to me to pay $140 for a digital copy.
>
>Maybe the price will come down, but I doubt it.
>
>
>Thanks,
>Shawn
>
>
>


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