Book People Archive

Re: Trade protectism explain in relation to cartoons.

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 Haradda@[redacted] wrote:

> Ok you have read what I think is Orwellian.  Give me your definition.  As I
> recall from the book the phrases "the object of power is power"  and "power is
> not a means it is an end,"that and 'the image of a boot coming down on the
> collective face of mankind." But I am open to alternative interpretations.

Power is not ONLY a means, it is an end in itself, for those who want
that kind of power.

However, let's make sure we differentiate between direct and indirect power.

Direct power is one's ability to control one's environment.

Gathering food, clothing, shelter, and generally improving your situation.

Direct power is controlling things.

Indirect power is controlling other people.

Just in the last century we have changed what most people do
from direct power to indirect power.

Obviously indirect power is the only way to become millionaires
and billionaires.

But then you are dependent on that indirect control,
rather than your own direct abilities.

This is why the self-sufficient farmer laughs at Donald Trump.


>>> Now we are talking economics and digital economics at that.  I don't know
>>> how to break it to you but prices are set by demand and what economists
>>> refer to as market elasticity, i.e. the number of people who want that
>>> peoduct as the set price.  But really most of that goes completly out the
>>> window with digital materials.  If you follow the TI curve the very first
>>> DVD costs $100,000+ but the very next one costs $1.00 or less.
>>
>> And if they can get someone to pay $100,000 plus the cost of dubbing,
>> then they're fine. But since they can't, they have to spread that cost
>> of all the produced DVDs.

Actually, more and more people are learning to do all this on their own,
through direct power via control of their computers, etc.  I gave the
example of Robert Rodriguez and his "Troublemaker Studios," earlier.


> The problem with your line of reasoning is that I shouldn't be able to go
> down to WalMart and purchase hundreds of public domain DVD's for a dollar
> apiece. Or go to Dollar Tree or Family dollar or Smith's Market Place and
> buy two movies for a dollar.  AOL is offering downloads of selected TV
> series episodes for .99 cents.  These are suppose to be remastered and
> reformatted.  Must cost something to do that.  I know that to print off
> a DVD commercially in the U.S. with incerts and cases you are looking
> at $15,000 plus $1.50  per DVD.  If you go to China that $1.50 goes down
> to about .80 cents per DVD.  These are in quantities up to a 15,000 DVD run.

Of course, you could simply do it yourself, in any numbers, for even less.


> But you are right you need to set a price that covers your costs and
> maximizes your profits.

"Maximizes your profits," there's the rub.

Whatever happened to just making "a decent profit?"

"We owe it to our shareholders" to charge as much as we can get!

"You can't blame me for wanting to bring home more for my children!"

Sheesh!


> Prices set very low imply that the product is not worth very much.

Only in the perspectives of certain points of view.

When you are dying of thirst, a gallon of water is priceless.

Whey you are dying of hunder, a meal of anything is priceless.

When you have polluted all the air, fresh air is priceless.

How many of you are aware that there have been "fresh air stations"
providing a literal "breath of fresh air" in cities of millions for
over a decade now?

I came from a locale where you could drink pure icewater right out
of the ground, certified annually by the government, and this was
true even 200 miles away.  We just laughed at bottled water.

WHAT a concept!!!


> I rationalize my dollar movie DVD purchases by saying that if they are truely
> bad with no redeaming qualities then I can throw them away or use them as 
> costers without having any guilt in doing so. On the other hand some of them 
> are rather good.  It's a matter of taste.

Some values are more objective and thus are NOT a matter of taste.

However, if you go to a great movie or a lousy movie, the ticket is the same.

It's the number of people who go that made Star Wars $1 billion last year,
not the price of the tickets, the DVDs, etc.


> But I digress.  If you make the assumption that you are going to sell 50 
> million DVD's of a movie that costs you basically nothing because the 
> production costs and translation/dubbing have already been paid for in your 
> home market.

You digress more than one might initially think.

All you are doing here is "robbing Peter to pay Paul," costs are the same,
you are just rich enough to do what you want.

The point here is that the price of being "rich enough to do what you want"
in terms of making CDs, DVDs, etc., has fallen to the point where a billion
people out there can consider it, and millions actually do it.

This is a far cry from just 25 years ago when 99% of all movies were seen
in theaters.

Times are changing. . .and the previous powers-that-be know that:
"uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" and all that.

Thus they pass extended copyright laws to keep us from copying
what would be legal without such, and then complain that the
world is stealing their copyrighted materials when it is they
who pirated the public domain.



> At $10 per DVD you made $500 million.  This is how AOL is doing it. 
> Then your problem is to set the price high enough so that people will value 
> the product you are selling but low enough to attract impulse buying.

Ah, so you don't want people to actually THINK about buying your product,
just to buy it mindlessly, an "impulse buy?"

Somehow this is not a refreshing concept when I consider eBooks.

It would be nice if they didn't have to think too much about the cost,
but not to think at all, an "impulse" purchase at the checkout line?

Hmmm.


> Because every one you sell is pure profit from that point on.  It is one of 
> the ironies of economics that if you set your price to high you will 
> discourage the sales you could have made.

True, but there are other reasons for setting high prices,
perhaps the most notable among them is the "elitist factor."

Not to mention the "early high profits" factor.

How many businesses failed to make a decent profit by pricing too high?

More than failed by pricing too low.

You can always raise the price of a popularly selling item
to make higher profits.

You can't always lower the price of something that is not selling
to make higher profits.

Just look at what happened to the last generation of floppy drives,
the 2.88 megabyte version, and then all the others up to 20 megs.

Everyone had had time to realize that floppy drives that started
at $500 [yes, the first IBM PCs came with Tandon drives at $475,
plus tax, well over $500 under most sales taxes] would eventually
end up at under 10%, either for the same brand or a competitor,
and the same was true of the disks.  1.2M drives didn't cost an
arm and a leg, and the first 720K and 1.44M versions quickly
came down in price.

But the 2.88 drives never came down in price, and vanished,
never having reached enough of the market to be feasible to
the average user.

And there are hundreds more products that never even got as
much publicity that we never heard of.

I *should* mention here the original Hewlett-Packard calculator
that failed to sell to the public at $125, but repriced to sell
to engineers at $450, did quite well.



> I would say that the going price to maximize your profits with DVD movies is 
> somewhere between $7and $15 for the U.S. markets.  Now to being this back to 
> ebooks.  Based on my experience if you have 20,000 to 50,000 ebooks in your 
> DVD collection then you could sell just about everything you have for $50 for
 
> the DVD collection.  If you sell it for between $50 and $100 you will make 
> the most money.  Anything higher than that you won't make nearly as much.

I think this would make a good research project:

Make the same materials available through different brand names,
at prices from $19.95 to $99.95 and see how well each sells.


> David Reed




Give the world eBooks in 2006!!!

Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg