
How to Charge $1,000 for Absolutely Nothing - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/how-to-charge-s1000-for-absolutely-nothing/
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orangecat
This is still the champion in dollars per byte:
[http://peetm.com/blog/?p=55](http://peetm.com/blog/?p=55)

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schoen
Awesome!

Compare:
[http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/humor/ATT_Copyright_true.html](http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/humor/ATT_Copyright_true.html)

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primigenus
This reminds me of the classic Million Dollar Homepage from way back when:
[http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/](http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/)

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Kopion
What is the actual background on this site and/or its creator?

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primigenus
> The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a
> student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university
> education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 ×
> 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for US$1 per pixel in
> 10 × 10 blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to
> be displayed on them, a URL to which the images were linked, and a slogan to
> be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website
> was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million
> dollars for the creator.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage)

The sheer "internet"-ness of the idea at the time was brilliant. It also seems
like the kind of thing you can only really pull off once. And it was funny
watching it slowly fill up, discovering what kind of businesses turned out to
spend on something like this, what colours they attempted to choose to stand
out, and how the result was a chaotic mess with everyone fighting for
attention. Subtle commentary and somewhat prophetic of the current situation
with ads...

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nmela
Huh, interesting to be in such blunt terms. Any product really is a testament
to someone's bank account. That's pretty much the point of ~most~ of branding.
The Ralph Lauren jacket is charging you an extra 1k for Absolutely Nothing, as
well.

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crdb
I disagree with this assertion at least as pertains to RL.

Some brands (like Apple) invest considerably more in doing things "properly"
as opposed to "just enough", and a fairly large and wealthy market exists that
is both less price-sensitive, and more quality-sensitive than those who
purchase the "just enough".

Especially with the higher quality from RL (e.g. Purple Label), I would say
the buyers are more concerned about being certain that the product will be of
a good enough quality, and less concerned about the price tag and RL's profit
margin.

RL also sells "taste", that is, it is a "safe" choice if you are trying to
dress conservatively. This is also monetized.

(I personally would rather go to a tailor at that price point, and I do. This
has a fairly heavy knowledge and time cost though.)

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WorldWideWayne
I would argue that Apple creates products with "just enough" functionality.

It took them decades to get around to letting users resize a window properly.
Their maps product was steering people into lakes. They sell a computer that
looks like a trash can. I mean, there are plenty of examples to show Apple
doing things improperly.

Normal people buy Apple because it's a status symbol, hackers buy Apple
because it's Unix and we all know the deal with graphics designers. If it
weren't Unix though, nobody here would be using an Apple computer and they'd
probably be making fun of how annoying OS X is (well, they still do that but
hey, it's Unix!).

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crdb
Apple today makes products which are the "whole package", a well built tool
for power users that isn't the absolute top shelf most amazing product
available but in its niche is a solid choice well worth the investment where
nothing is broken (great battery life, solid metal shell that can take a bump,
SSD, quiet and stays cool, components that don't break after 2 years, BSD-
based OS with a wrapper that allows you never to reboot, brilliant screen...).
It costs a lot of money to go from '95% of products don't break' to '99% of
products don't break AND the 1% is replaced at the shop immediately, with the
defective unit fixed, next day free shipping, etc.' Apple gets that no, it's
not worth squeezing an extra $10 margin off the battery by halving its
effective life or $2 by buying crappy hinges that will break after a while
(since the warranty is over in a year anyway).

"Just enough" isn't a MacBook Pro or even an Air, it's a 3-4 year old machine
you pick up for $150 on eBay or maybe that $200 netbook you picked up on a
sale at your local supermarket. Could be the machine you got for free when
your neighbour updated. This machine can go on the internet, display your
emails, show you the occasional movie (and if you're a particularly sharp
average user, allow you to download them illegally) without crashing too
often. That's the world normal people live in, in the first world. In the
third world, a crappy no name 4" Android that takes 30 seconds to load any web
page over the local 3G is what you deal with and a branded phablet is "luxury"
(and an iPhone is like a Ferrari Italia).

In clothing, "just enough" is Primark or H&M - cheap, replaceable stuff
without much thinking behind it. Uniqlo is doing very well because it's
offering (much) better quality in that range at the same price point,
especially regarding "taste". In cars, it's the Camry or the Accord, which can
last a good 20 years with little servicing, gets you from A to B with decent
fuel economy, and can be had second hand for a few thousand dollars. Car guys
will think that a 3-series is "normal", but it isn't - it's the 5% as seen by
those in the 0.5%.

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WorldWideWayne
I agree that they make hardware that most people consider to be of a good
quality. I agree that they do _some_ things really well. I do not agree that
they do _everything_ well though.

You're conflating brand position and hardware build quality with
functionality. Yes, Apple is considered the BMW of computers. But, it's not
because the give the user _all_ of the features that they actually need.

Apple is known for skimping on features and options. They'd rather give you
one button instead of two and then try and convince you that that choice is
actually better somehow. They'd rather leave out a feature that everybody
needs than do it in a way that they cannot capitalize on. They make all of
their money by selling devices that are mechanically simple as possible
because less moving parts cost less to make. Same thing with their software.
Less features, less options, easier to maintain...but users are often left
without actual features.

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ChuckMcM
I always thought it disappointing that Apple took the App down. It really was
classic, and I disagreed that it wasn't functional, knowing someone had that
App on their iPhone was very useful to _me_ in terms of understanding how
little they valued money :-)

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dr_hercules
The IPhone itself is somewhat like this "I am rich app"-app.

You could get the same or higher value for less money by buying a Samsung f.x.

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npx
Honestly, I think that there are many direct marketers who vastly exceed this
level of frivolity.

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sayemm
Very interesting comment, can you give any other examples of this?

