Re: Nibbles Magazines ISO

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <OYKdnS9SIdpwE2PanZ2dnUVZ_ualnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
>Sir Fart A Lot wrote:
>> 
>> I agree with everything your saying, its a real art though to find that 
>> sort of golden price point where the most profit can be made with the 
>> lowest price (its hard to raise prices). But making any sort of product 
>> for Apple 2 users and enthusiats  is not exactly trying to making 
>> millions and odds are you may lose money.  I have to feel that expecting 
>> really low prices is sort of delusional unless the guy just gives up and 
>> decides to cut his losses and run which is not good for the community. 
>> If everyone in America suddenly got into buying telescopes (my other 
>> obsession) I would expect the high prices of my other hobby to come 
>> down, but I am not holding my breath on that one either

As a matter of fact, telescope prices HAVE come down a lot!  Check the
price for similar scopes some 30 years ago and compare!  Of course,
computer controlled scopes weren't even available back then.....

>> (science is sort 
>> of look at scornfully these days in America) and I just pay the high 
>> number knowing that there just arent that many amateur astronomers  I am 
>> just glad that people even consider tiny markets like the Apple ][ to 
>> make product as most of these guys are enthusiats who deserve to 
>> certainly not have to lose money, I cant really expect them to be 
>> dumping stuff for a market that may only be a few hundred people in 
>> total if EVERYONE purchased.
>
>I certainly agree that today's "Apple II market" is very small, and
>even that small figure includes many "collectors" who would not find
>a DVD of scans of an old magazine nearly as interesting as a box of
>*actual* old magazines (and old Nibble magazines are actually not
>rare, yet).
>
>The non-collector Apple II market is accustomed to "garage sale"
>pricing on most of what they buy, with a few exceptions.  They are
>probably willing to pay a bit for convenience, but not much.
>
>Virtually all of the few current vendors to the Apple II market
>have priced their goods to simply recover costs, realizing that
>their efforts were a labor of love, and personal awareness that
>they have done something fun and/or useful (plus some public
>acknowledgement) is their main reward.  Anyone looking to the
>Apple II market as a money-making opportunity is out of touch
>with reality.
>
>The publisher of the Nibble DVD is the original publisher of the
>magazine, and he has priced it as he might a collection of all
>the backissues of a current archival magazine (like National
>Geographic).  In today's Apple II market, this is a considerable
>overestimate of their marginal utility to most enthusiasts, who
>either already have boxes of Nibble in their garage or can live
>without them.
>
>I agree that it is unlikely that he will reduce the price to
>a point where it could be considered a "no brainer" to buy it--

...and the only reasonable response to such an attitude is to
not buy the DVD.  And the end result will be that he might as
well have refrained from putting all those Nibble magazines on
DVD, since so few people bought it.  Anyway, since he has the
copyright of Nibble, he has the fll right to do whatever he
wants with it.  And in a way I'm not surprised that he acts the
way he does now.  I was a subscriber of Nibble for a few years
back then, and I remember an editorial where he wrote about those
of his subscribers which typed in a program from a listing in
Nibble and then shared the program with their friends - he called
them "sneak thieves", period.  He thought these friends instead
should buy their own copy of the magazine and then type in the
program themselves!  I guess he also frowned at people borrowing
magazines from one another.....


>that's the way emotions are.  But he would certainly make more
>money--and more importantly, get his "baby" into the hands of
>more people--by doing so.  The only "risk" is ticking off the
>people who paid full price earlier (kind of like Steve Jobs with
>the iPhone ;-), but I expect Mike would be forgiven.  ;-)
>
>What would *really* make the utility of the DVD greater would
>be the inclusion of all the Nibble and Micro-Sparc software,
>all of which is thoroughly obsolete, but some still of interest
>to enthusiasts.  Since the publisher's archives were lost, this
>would essentially be a labor of love for the community to find
>and assemble this software--for which charging additional
>money would be somewhat incongruous.
>
>At some point, copyright holders must judge that they have
>received fair compensation for their product and allow the
>works to circulate freely.  This is not currently well-supported
>by law, but is, I think, the reasonable position--particularly
>for works with an obvious "shelf life" like old computer stuff.
>
>I have noted before that the term of copyright in the US will
>always obey the rule that "Mickey Mouse is not in the public
>domain".  There's a lot of money lobbying to make that so.
>
>Special interests pretty much ensure that copyright will not
>fulfill the role intended by its creators, to stimulate the
>creation of new works while permitting fair use and enriching
>the public domain.
>
>>> And as the price comes down, the number of sales goes up.
>>>
>>> Pricing theory is about finding the price which will, as a
>>> result of this "elasticity" of the market, maximize total
>>> profit.
>>>
>>> Since all the effort required to make all the copies (except
>>> plopping a $0.20 DVD in a burner) is already spent, the question
>>> isn't how much trouble it was to create it, but how much it's
>>> worth to the largest number of potential buyers.
>>>
>>> Put another way, "sunk cost" is irrelevant.
>>>
>>> A well-worn rule of thumb is that the price that marks the
>>> start of the "impulse buy" range is the price of a pizza.  ;-)
>>>
>>> So I'm guessing that if the price dropped to $24.95, he'd
>>> sell over a hundred of them--all but $1 + $1 postage would
>>> be *pure profit*!
>>>
>>> (BTW, I already bought mine.  ;-)
>
>-michael
>
>NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
>Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
>
>"The wastebasket is our most important design
>tool--and it's seriously underused."


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