
Hacking the Breast Pump - koji
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/hacking-breast-pump
======
thebenedict
“Finally, someone took me aside and said, ‘We could make cheaper technology,
but it wouldn’t support the cost of our sales force, so we have no motivation
to do so.’”

I don't understand. Isn't the cost of the sales force built in to the cost of
the product, so if the hardware cost went down the end price would be reduced
somewhat but still include the cost of sales? Is there some retailer or
consumer psychology at play where people don't want a cheap breast pump?

~~~
bunderbunder
This wasn't for breast pumps, it was for fetal monitors.

Fetal monitors exist in a fractally broken market. The people delivering
medical devices have little motivation to be price-conscious because the
people making purchasing decisions about their products have limited
motivation to be price-conscious. The people making purchasing decisions have
little motivation to be price-conscious, because they just pass the costs on
to patients. Patients, in turn, do not ask about costs associated with fetal
monitoring up-front, are not in a position to do any negotiation regarding
fetal monitoring in the moment, and in any case aren't too worried because
their insurance company picks up the cost. Sort of. The insurance company, in
turn, doesn't worry too too much about the cost of the fetal monitors that the
hospital chooses, because they still figure out how to pass the cost back to
the patient - which they can do successfully because in the United States it's
exceedingly rare for consumers of health insurance to comparison shop.
Instead, they just go along with whatever option is chosen by some HR folks
who are mostly spending other people's money and therefore have all sorts of
incentive to not worry too terribly much about the best interest of the
consumer.

So yes, there is some weird consumer psychology at play. The weird psychology
is that we've got this crazy aspect of our culture where it's not just OK for
our employers to be meting out important and expensive health care decisions
to us (a bizarre proposition if you look at it objectively), it's actually
_desirable_ , so desirable that many people are unwilling to consider taking
jobs where a health plan isn't included in the benefits package.

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koji
Additional information on the Hackathon:
[http://breastpump.media.mit.edu/](http://breastpump.media.mit.edu/)

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cwbrandsma
OK, I read the entire article, it was interesting.

Unfortunately, I read the entire article, including the last paragraph. That
last paragraph killed it for me. Completely uncalled for statement that had
NOTHING to do with purpose of the hackathon, and the only point of the
statement was to negated any and all accomplishment of the attendees. Because
those other items were not solved, all is for nothing.

I still have respect for the attendees, great job. I have none for the
reporter (and editor).

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johnnyg
I own breastpump.com and am interested in a deal with anyone interested in the
space or anyone looking to commercialize a product coming out of the
hackathon.

~~~
simoncion
Christ. $200k for a DNS entry? This "market" is insane.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140517081811/http://breastpump...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140517081811/http://breastpump.com/)

~~~
cmdrfred
Seriously, ill take the .co save 199k and a letter.

