'Pinch Factor'

[ravisunny2]

Ever hear of the ‘pinch factor’ ?

Well, I think I’ve coined it, unless someone else wishes to be credited, and rightfully so.

After all is said and done, its not patents & royalties, but plain simple good business sense, that fetches in the moolha.

One can understand ‘materials cost’, ‘manuf. Cost’, ‘shipping cost’ etc. But what about cost of developing software ?

Sure people make the software, and they get paid, and resources are used etc. etc. etc.

But its plain dumb to ignore plain common sense.

The gentleman who started McDonalds, had plenty of common sense.

Do you get the drift ?

He decided to make things affordable ( and of course maintain quality).

The basic idea was ‘if it pinches the pocket too much, it won’t sell well’.

When a guy, in the good old US of A, has to shell out 50 bucks, he feels a certain pinch.

When a guy in India, for instance, has to shell out upwards of 2 grand (for the same thing), he feels the bite.

The conversion factor, of around 50, looks all neat & dandy on bits of government paper. But ask the common man what the factor of 50 means to him. Can’t quite imagine it ? Try to reverse the roles.

When is someone going to pump some sense into the hard boiled business leaders ?

Can some one get them to contemplate, for a brief moment, about a thing called the ‘pinch factor’ ?

I don’t have hard figures & stats ( as yet), but I have spent some time thinking ‘ if it cost xxxxx, I’d snap it up’.

My personal feeling is, that for a lot of things, the ‘pinch factor’ is around 10 (ten).

What that means is, that if I had to shell out 500 of my bucks, I’d feel the same pinch, that you would in the USA for $50.

And lots of folks would accept that pinch as a worthwhile one.

If the ‘pinch factor’ was used, the customers base would go up astronomically, and the resulting profits would go up many-fold.

Well I don’t expect all to agree with these ideas, and for sure I am going to attract a lot of flak.

Bye,

Ravi Banthia

Certa Bonum Certamen

 

[SNGX1275]

The only thing I'm going to complain about right now is I don't really know what you are getting at. I sort of see what you are saying about the pinch factor, maybe, but I have no idea where you are trying to go with it.

Also did you really type out every sentence and then hit enter twice before starting a new one? I'm wary of people who post a thread hoping or expecting to stir up controversy before they've been around here and more known (this was somewhere in your first 5 posts). Your post seems like one you could find copy pasted to any number of other web forums, and while I can see the benefit of posting the same thing to several, it just seems a bit rude to do.

 

[Masque]

I just thought somebody had more than their two allotted cups of coffee this morning. :slurp:

 

[ravisunny2]

Thanks.

Nice of you to pen your thoughts.

 

[ravisunny2]

Dear SNGX1275,

Nice of you to send your views.

First of all, the message was quite elaborate.

Secondly, I did not copy the message from any website.

(and, as you can see, I am using the 'ENTER' button quite lavishly)

If you do come across a ditto or similar posting on any site, would you please let me know ?

No, I don't like to stir up controversies unnecessarily, but I did think this was a good forum to voice my thoughts about something important.

And, I certainly wasn't trying to be rude.

Finally, I don't know any Latin, but I do know the meaning of 'Certa Bonum Certamen' (at least I think I do).

Ravi Banthia

Certa Bonum Certamen

 

[ravisunny2]

the ‘pinch factor’ is around 10 (ten).

Yes, I beleive that the PF is about 10.

 

[jtickner1]

I think he's trying to get the idea forward that because games and software are a tad expensive people ****** them, and if they were cheaper a lot less piracy would happen... thats just my 2c and that was pretty confusing to try and understand... pretty pointless thread in the end if you're going to make it that hard to understand

 

[captaincranky]

Well Sometmes it Happens in Reverse......i

We in the US are very fortunate with respect with respect to availability and price of computer hardware, true enough.

Prescription drugs, not so much.

Bill Gates' stated intention to give away Windows to the less privileged seems a solution based in health care and drug dealer mentality. Get them hooked for cheap, then raise the price, or make the ones who can afford it pay more at the jump. As they say, sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

As to reducing piracy by alleviating the "pinch factor" by reducing price, I'm not exactly certain that choosing to be a ****** isn't a lifestyle choice, rather than an economic one.

As one person with a tendency to ramble to another, it does seem that a couple of your posts recently do seem a tad diffuse. Not criticism just observation.

 

[Tedster]

It's called a free market. The price charged generally is what the market will bear. If it's an impoverished market, then it won't sell (usually). Businesses are entitled to make money. I don't support freeloading or forcing companies to give away or low sell products at a loss. If they wish to donate or low-sell at their own choice, that is fine and commendable. But the public isn't entitled - that's a welfare attitude.

 

[captaincranky]

Off the Beaten Thread........

While I commend you heartily on your stand against the "welfare mentality", you should probably take into consideration record oil and drug company profits before you come out too strongly in favor good old fashioned capitalism.
I suppose and good mantra for someone filling up his car might be: Exxon is doing this for my own good, Exxon is helping me build character; Exxon is a humanitarian organization! (repeat and fade).

 

[MetalX]

This reminded me of the fact that some medical things, prescription drugs etc. which cost hundreds of dollars can be had in Cuba for like $5 US. I saw that in Sicko. And of course here in Canada, we get it all for free.

 

[Tedster]

I am most definately a capitalist and firmly believe in it. It may not be the most perfect system, but it's the best one out there. Oil companies and pharmaceuticals are entitled to make a profit. Consider the risks and costs involved in drilling and the research and development costs in making a drug - not to mention the liabilities.

If you don't like the product, go elsewhere. Personally I avoid buying gas as much as possible. I use ethanol in my truck. I don't like buying fuel from middle eastern countries (that support terrorism) nor communist countries (like Venezuela.) Nor do I buy products made in communist countries like China (it's hard to do, but I try nonetheless).

 

[captaincranky]

Right ..........and then......

No we in the US need a passport to travel to Canada and we're not allowed in Cuba at all. We're either fighting terrorism and protecting the drug company's profits depends on who you ask. Oh, I get it, we're doing both. In fact they tried to make it illegal for Americans to buy drugs in Canada.

Now here's the $64,000 question; is **** Cheney's Halliburton Corporation still selling gasoline to the army in Irag? At well over $2.00 a gallon? Now there's the free market in action! To have your troops sitting in the middle of an oil field while your Vice President's company pumps in gasoline from outside at a healthy profit.
And Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage you say, it's illegal for the government to negotiate a lower price from the drug companies. You know, it's like Congress was paid off.
Well, round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. Oh no, I think I just sat on it, ouch.

Still though ya gotta admit, we here in the colonies get the best prices on computer parts!

 

[captaincranky]

I am most definately a capitalist and firmly believe in it. It may not be the most perfect system, but it's the best one out there. Oil companies and pharmaceuticals are entitled to make a profit. Consider the risks and costs involved in drilling and the research and development costs in making a drug - not to mention the liabilities.

If you don't like the product, go elsewhere. Personally I avoid buying gas as much as possible. I use ethanol in my truck. I don't like buying fuel from middle eastern countries (that support terrorism) nor communist countries (like Venezuela.) Nor do I buy products made in communist countries like China (it's hard to do, but I try nonetheless).

Unfortunately, while I agree in principle, there are other forces at work. It simply isn't possible to not buy things from China.
The Unions have stood up for the American worker to the extent that we can't actually afford to buy (or even manufacture) anything American.
Then I suppose our new "service based economy" isn't really a house of cards, and the trade deficit will rectify itself any day now, on it's own.
Where exactly is "someplace else" for a non-generic drug?
The simple fact is that we can be as indignant and self righteous as we think we can get away with, but at the end of the day we'll all be at the BP station, paying the dictated price.
Do you think it's true what some people claim, that a gallon of ethanol takes more energy to produce than you get by burning it? <please note question mark
If that's true, then that industry is just farm subsidy pork.

Wow, is this thread off topic. I would worry about that much more if it had had an actual topic in the first place

 

[MetalX]

I do think that Ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces. And it uses an incredible amount of water. If we were to use ethanol in place of oil for every single thing that uses oil in the whole world, I don't think we'd have nearly enough farmland in the world to grow it all. And if we did, there wouldn't be enough land to grow food. Which we need to survive.

 

[captaincranky]

Also take into consideration........

You'd have to cover the cornfields with banks of solar panels to compensate for oil use in electrical power stations. Of course, the corn would grow slower, then wow-whee nothing would get done.

Of course this is a bit of an exaggeration......, but it does make obvious the fact that a return to nuclear power might actually make sense. Granted, we would have to check, double-check, then check again, everything we've done to minimize the risk. Human greed, stupidity, and a building full of Plutonium don't mix, of that I am certain.

I live in PA, USA and we like to point out that "we have enough coal to last 500 years"! So what's 500 years on a cosmic scale, less than the blink of an eye. This is considering that it took us well over a million years to screw things up to this point.

 

[Tedster]

Unfortunately, while I agree in principle, there are other forces at work. It simply isn't possible to not buy things from China.
The Unions have stood up for the American worker to the extent that we can't actually afford to buy (or even manufacture) anything American.
Then I suppose our new "service based economy" isn't really a house of cards, and the trade deficit will rectify itself any day now, on it's own.
Where exactly is "someplace else" for a non-generic drug?
The simple fact is that we can be as indignant and self righteous as we think we can get away with, but at the end of the day we'll all be at the BP station, paying the dictated price.
Do you think it's true what some people claim, that a gallon of ethanol takes more energy to produce than you get by burning it? <please note question mark
If that's true, then that industry is just farm subsidy pork.

Wow, is this thread off topic. I would worry about that much more if it had had an actual topic in the first place

Actually, I'd beg to differ. It IS possible. Though quite hard and in a few areas impossible. But I avoid it as much as possible.

 

[MetalX]

You lost me. What part of his quote are you referring to?