Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 21:14:42 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: jbryant@tfs.net Cc: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert), freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: On Holy Wars, and a Plea for Peace [sorry Danny, wherever you are, but the title fits]... Message-ID: <4146.861250482@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 16 Apr 1997 21:15:05 CDT." <199704170215.VAA15005@argus>
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> i'll add another few items to my list from last night... > > 1). chop the price in half to $19.95. It wouldn't help. This would reduce FreeBSD to the price of the shovelware CDs, and Walnut Creek CDROM has done quite a bit of price experimentation here. Every CD they've discounted this steeply has suffered a _decline_ in sales rather than what you'd expect. There is some odd aspect of human nature which works against making things too cheap - the product suddenly becomes equated with "junk" or something. I frankly don't know what causes this, but it most definitely happens and Rob Kolstad could also tell you a few things about it. When he raised his BSD/OS prices, despite all the public outcry about what evil nasty people they were for doing so, unit sales went UP (as, obviously, did their profit margins). He was recently telling me that even he didn't believe it and told the marketing department that they were out of their trees if they thought increasing the price would increase sales, but they convinced him to try it anyway and and lo and behold, they were right and he was wrong! > 2). drop the subscription priceing, if it's cheap to begin with, > then there is no need for a subscription rate... Heh. There are many reasons for having subs, the price being only one of them. > 3). keep SNAP releases as a mail-order item, keep the > experimenters happy, but don't confuse the dweebs, er, We sell to distributors and end-users both. What the distributors do with the product afterwards is their call, not ours. Basically, I hate to say that you're wrong on all 3 counts and taking your advice would probably be the very very worst thing we could do. :-) Jordan
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