🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Aug7.032844.5539@wpa.com> john@wpa.com (John Bartley) writes:

>In article <1992Aug6.141753.18854@Happy-Man.com> irving@Happy-Man.com  
>(Irving_Wolfe) writes:

>>  We publish SOLID VALUE for the intelligent investor.   NextMail OK
>> Info free; sample $20.  

>Why is your "sample" $20, but in your opinion RightBrain Rulers should  
>only cost $10? What's wrong with this picture?

1.  RightBrain Rulers is a convenience product.  I have it.  I paid 
for it.  I like it because it occasionally helps me line things up 
properly when I'm using Abode Illustrator or FrameMaker (neither of 
which I pirated).  It's a valuable product and I'd encourage those 
who want such a tool to buy it, especially with the Summer Madness 
Sale reducing the cost.  However, it's an unimportant product even 
to those who like it.  I'd be just as prosperous and just as happy 
without it; it just makes things a little easier from time to time.  

2.  Solid Value (our publication that shows investors the market's 
most under-priced, financially-solid stocks) is not primarily a 
convenience product.  It's a tool for making money.  The typical 
reader, based on our performance record, spends $11.50 an issue to 
subscribe but makes $2,500 a year higher income because he takes 
advantage of our assistance.  Those with large investment 
portfolios can make much more.  In a sense, Solid Value is an
industrial product, not a consumer product; as a profit-generator,
its price must be judged in terms of payback, not absolute level,
and on that basis, it is a real bargain compared with what it
produces for those with moderate-sized investment portfolios.

3.  We sell subscriptions, not samples.  Our sample price is 
roughly double the subscription price specifically to discourage 
sales of samples and thus encourage sales of subscriptions.  Thus 
my own pricing policy is completely in accord with my belief that 
high prices discourage sales -- and I'm trying to.  

Actually, samples were once free, then $5, then $10, before 
becoming $20.  It really works.  We distributed fewer and fewer 
copies as we raised the price.  Similarly, Glenn will sell more 
and more copies as he lowers the price.  

4.  I find it hard to understand why my suggestion that software
companies might make more money, not less, if they cut their prices
drastically is so frightening to a few people out there, such as
the poster above and, especially, to Scott Anguish, who sounded in
his vitriolic response like he was about to blow a gasket.  I find
it hard to understand how anyone using Next's C compiler, a GNU/FSF
free software product, can criticize the noble goals of the Free
Software Foundation.  In fact, there is probably _no_ Usenet
newsreader in existence that actually costs money, except maybe
that thing Brad Templeton tries to sell over the net.  Just
remember, before you have a fit and put yourself in the hospital,
that all I did was offer some business advice, which can't be worth
any less than Glenn paid me for it.  It is you apoplectic
psychopaths that have advocated shooting people (M Carling),
putting them in jail (many of you), etc.  My own approach is
kindness and common sense.  Whom will you follow, an angry tyrant
or a simple, loving man who speaks the truth?  What a funny place
the world is!  Apparently many of you have such distrust, fear, and
hatred for your fellow man as to give away your own freedom just to
take away his.

-- 
 Irving_Wolfe@Happy-Man.com      Happy Man Corp.  206/463-9399 x101
 4410 SW Pt. Robinson Rd., Vashon Island, WA  98070-7399   fax x108
 We publish SOLID VALUE for the intelligent investor.   NextMail OK
Info free; sample $20.  Send POSTAL addrs: Solid-Value@Happy-Man.com