

Scarcity - yangyang42
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/07/scarcity.html

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chris_l
This is spot on, I've wondered about the economics of scarcity for a while.
How does it apply to selling accounts for a hot web service? Maybe give them
away for free while you're obscure, grant invitation privileges to the early
adopters and start charging when the mass of users rolls in. Bonus points for
raising the price, the more well-known you become. Can you share your success
with the early adopters? Maybe allow them to sell their contingent of free
accounts somehow?

~~~
jamiequint
"economics of scarcity"

The definition of economics is the study of resource allocation under
scarcity. Giving away stuff for free is marketing, not economics.

~~~
brianlash
You make it sound as though they're mutually exclusive. Economics is a body of
knowledge. Marketing is an action.

Incidentally any action taken in a free market can be described in terms of
Economics, even when there's no currency changing hands (e.g. opportunity
costs on the part of the seller/buyer).

If you're looking for the scarcities in the "Economics of free," I think 2 are
pretty straightforward: Buyers' and sellers' Time (current), and the sellers'
Product (future) that's certain to follow any "free" strategy.

~~~
davidw
"Free" stuff still falls under the purview of economics because there is some
scarcity lurking somewhere, as you correctly point out. It's just funny to
read "economics of scarcity" if you are familiar with one of the traditional
definitions of economics.

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themenace
Apple's "botched" shortages get it access to the scarcest medium of all: TV
news. All of the TV news broadcasts here in Toronto had a big story about the
Canadian iPhone launch because long lines with ecstatic and dejected fans are
perfect for TV. Using the Internet to form a queue wouldn't get TV coverage
because there's nothing visual or emotional to show.

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revorad
Is it just me or others agree that submitting Seth's posts on HN is a bit of
cheeky karma-earning hack? Almost everything Seth writes is 'worth' submitting
but given the high frequency of his posts, it's almost pointless to post them
on HN.

I'm not one for bans, but I'd request people to take it easy on those Godin
posts.

