| Mr. Inno loves his Zoogadot. Lots of others love theirs too; there's a whole community around it. Mr. Inno isn't happy with the way the flinkle in his Zoogadot functions, so he starts to putz with it, for fun. "For fun" turns into long hours, research, time, energy, and personal expenditure. Luckily it's still fun. After long hours for months seemingly without end, he finally arrives at a good finishing point. He tests the new flinkle and finds that it does indeed operate 21% better than the original. He's excited. He wants to share his excitement and the new functionality with the other members of the Zoogadot community, but he realizes he can't make enough by himself, so he puts up the cash and contracts a shop to make them for him. To make it worth all of their whiles, he has to put up $10k, from his own pocket, which he gladly does, energized by what he's accomplished and thoughts of how happy the community will be. Finally the flinkles are all ready! It's a big day. Mr. Inno makes his announcement to the community, shares his research and explains how it's better. Everyone is excited! Everyone wants a new flinkle! But in order to cover his costs for all the money he spent in trials of different designs and ideas, for what he paid the CAD guy, for the materials of everything that got scrapped in addition to what finally got used, for the initial set-up fees with the shop, and then the per-unit cost, he has to charge $367 - and he's only making $5 profit off each unit. The rest of the cost is covering all those other costs he had to put forth. But he's so excited and happy to share that he doesn't want to ask for more because he realizes a higher cost might keep people from buying them. Really, he's so excited to contribute to the community that he'd give them away free, if he could afford that, but $10k was a lot of money and he needs it to pay the mortgage. People love the new flinkles and they're buying them up. Mr. Inno is so happy; people are thanking him and praising the new flinkle. But some people can't afford $367, or don't want to pay that much, and they start grumbling about Why can't the cost be lower? Mr. Bis hears the grumbling and realizes there's a market here. He buys one of the new flinkles and contracts another shop to copy it. Why does it have to be so expensive?? It's only $200 a unit! So he sells them for $250 - much cheaper than the original, and he's still making a nice profit! The community sees this new cheap price, and they eat it up. Now Mr. Bis is making money hand over fist! And the people are so happy they don't have to pay $367. Geez, why couldn't Mr. Inno sell his for $250?? Oh wait - remember, Mr. Inno spent the time, blood, sweat, tears, and countless dollars just getting to the very first good flinkle. He spent a LOT more money than Mr. Bis did just to end up with ONE. Only a few people buy Mr. Inno's flinkles now; most of them are buying from Mr. Bis. Mr. Inno has a new idea, this one for a way to improve the rangon for the Zoogadot. If you were Mr. Inno, after this experience, would you bother? And what a lot of people don't remember or think about is that TIME IS MONEY. How much would you really exchange an hour of your weekend for? I've considered getting a second job. Friends of mine have done so. Retail - an easy enough second job in addition to a career. But you know what? They're only getting paid $8 an hour, and it's not even fun. I don't know about you, but an hour is worth more to me than $8. I'd rather curb my spending than do something I don't enjoy and I'm only getting $8 for. My point, and everyone else's who is trying to make the same one: Innovators spend lots of their own time and money to bring us good, quality products. If you buy the cheaper versions, you are not supporting them and they will have no reason to continue. There will be no more good quality fuel rails, turbos, downpipes, cat-backs, intercoolers, ANYTHING. Oh, there will be more products, but researched poorly, made quickly and out of cheap materials. Is that really the model you want to support?
You don't have to live in a bubble just because someone else caught the flu. Make your decision on your ability to trust yourself. - NytWolf 15:49:05 12/17/06
I was previously a aviation mechanic and avionic technician and this car is harder to work on than Aircraft. - Hocuz77 03:04:56 02/28/06 |
