huh. Interesting blog. But what I read doesn't have anything about objective value, or price signaling preference. Link?
Yes, I understand that one of these 32GiB ram, 8 core servers is worth about $1500 to me, or $6000, to someone unable to assemble a server from parts. There can be no value without a valuer, so technically, there can be no objective value. (just like I can't prove that you are not a figment of my imagination. It's impossible to do with the tools provided by philosophy. But I am unlikely to live a very successful life if I act as if others around me don't actually exist.)
However, the price of a commodity tends to fall to just above the cost of production, because, in the example above, building a server is fairly trivial once you have a good ESD setup, so if you charge $3K instead of $6K for the $1.5K server, someone else is going to charge $2.5, or $2K, until you get down to the smallest profit margin someone will accept to do the job.[1] This is what I mean by 'objective value'
Of course, some businesses try to say "Oh, our product is not a commodity" which is fine, but I would argue as a businessperson, I want as many of the inputs to my business as possible to be commodities. The idea is that if I use commodities, it is easy to compare pricing between vendors, and if one vendor fucks it up, I can easily switch to another. 'differentiated' products usually cost more, but they usually provide less value for those very reasons.
Of course, some businesses seem to prefer to spend $6K on the $1.5K server, even after seeing another vendor charge $3K for what amounts to the same hardware. I don't know why this is. My theory is that the people making that decision, the managers, do not have enough technical knowledge to know that the hardware is comparable, but more importantly, they are more concerned with minimizing their own personal risk than with maximizing the total expected return for the shareholders, who are ultimately paying for the hardware.
Clearly, I don't understand that market. Quite possibly there are good rational reasons why they like to pay 3x what they need to pay for hardware. I don't target this market because while I can build good servers, this market wants something else. I don't understand them so I can not serve them well. Besides, there are many good companies serving that market, and right now, I'm scaling at a comfortable pace. Serving a large corporation would require speeding that growth perhaps more than is healthy.
I will stick with serving my people for now. If shareholders start demanding that larger companies watch their budgets more closely, well, I'm here, and I'm learning more every day. Hopefully, when that day comes, I will be prepared. Until then, there are enough technical people with hobbies and small businesses to make me quite comfortable
[1] see serversdirect.com - I have no experience with them, but a co-lo customer of mine uses them. their prices /as posted on the website/ are very good; about what I'd charge if you asked me to build you servers.
well, You seem to be taking this 'all value is relative' (which is true, and the reason why capitalism works.) thing to mean that changing the branding of your product is no different from making your product better in a measurable way.
I disagree. Sending the consumer false signals is a very different thing from actually producing a better or cheaper product.
no. Marketing does not need to be manipulative or deceptive. In fact, if you are not anonymous and not going away when the company dies, deceptive or manipulative marketing is probably not long-term effective.
Pointing out that you exist and that your price is X and some other measurable attribute is Y is ethical, I think, assuming you use consensual channels, and that your price is in fact X and your other measurable attribute is in fact Y.
So yes, good marketing is honest and is important for both the buyer and the seller.
