

"Often, companies don’t believe in using a product unless they have to pay for it, usually a lot."  - TrevorJ
http://borderlinetheory.com/?p=102

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lnguyen
For enterprises, the license cost of a product is a small part of the
equation. Maintenance and support (billed annually) is really what they're
interested in.

And don't forget that the more that someone's paid for something, the more
willing they are to scream bloody murder until whatever issue (they think)
they're having is fixed.

~~~
pchristensen
Also, training users is expensive. Integrating with existing systems is
expensive. The price of failure (in opportunity cost) is high enough that most
big companies would rather pay 10x for something that WILL work than for
something that might work.

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dazzawazza
I've worked with this before. At a previous startup I was the only startup
member that had deployed a significant web application. I had always used the
FreeBSD platform. We deployed on Windows Server 2003 because despite my
personal experience and the ability to pay for FreeBSD support the powers that
be were nervous. At the end of the day 'you don't get fired for buying
Microsoft' won the day.

As you can see, this wasn't a healthy startup environment to be in where fear
wins over experience.

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startingup
This is not as irrational as it sounds. In our own personal lives, we make
decisions like this. As an example, I haven't in recent memory visited a
ultra-cheap ethnic restaurant (though I go to more expensive places), because
I am worried about their health standards. I am using price as a signal of
quality - which is reasonable in a perfectly competitive market, but alas, if
a lot of people act like me, the "perfectly competitive market" assumption may
not hold. In other words, this "price signals quality" thesis itself depends
on people evaluating quality first, and then the market sorts itself out based
on quality. But if people start acting en masse on the price-signals-quality
assumption, it stops signaling quality.

So this is a perpetual tension (or a perpetual self-referential loop!) that
means there are going to be overlooked bargains in the market. In case of
restaurants, I am just not that motivated to find them.

I can imagine enterprises feeling that way about IT.

~~~
TrevorJ
I think the biggest dichotomy in outlook occurs when you finally discover or
stumble on a tool of great quality which is also either free, or a very good
bargain. After that point it becomes worth it, on a personal level to invest
time into finding more of those gems. You become a believer in what I like to
call the "hidden gems" -a less obvious, and often more elegant solution to a
problem. (Be it software, or a life choice, or anything.)

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LPTS
In a similar vein, placebos work better when they are more expensive.

