That’s a good point. I’d say that we can’t really measure the value as a function of sales. It’s just that the sales are a good illustration of the fact that people have different opinions on value.
Oh it’s way more complicated than that, of course. What makes things even more complicated, the value of money is subjective as well. Just didn’t want to go that deep.
That’s how it works, you got it right, congrats.
I’d argue that it still defines the lower boundary, because profit margin dropping to zero means things have gone terribly wrong. However, of course, attributing costs (and profits) to just one party is a great oversimplification. And taking the distributors out of the equation can help the manufacturers and the customers indeed (not in every case though).
Overall, I think the main issue is that many people look at the prices from the labor theory of value viewpoint (even without knowing about the LTV), and it’s one of the things that are intuitive yet wrong, like heavy objects falling faster than the lighter ones.
What’s even worse, that misconception leads to a lot of rage, which isn’t good both for the ones experiencing it and the ones it’s aimed at. So if even one person reads this (admittedly) oversimplified post and thinks “hmm yeah I shouldn’t be angry about things not being valuable enough to me to justify their prices” and chills instead, I consider the time spent on typing it all as time well spent.
I’m gonna link this thread to people when necessary. I feel like it’s a constant conversation and source of forum arguments.
I do sometimes feel that people get really mobilized and aggressive about this topic. I think it may be due to varying reasons, some deeply personal, but one thought I had is that some might be upset when seeing others getting tremendous value from something that they personally don’t.
The op-1f is a great example of this. Many people were so aggressive in saying that it was an overpriced toy, and a common response to that was: don’t buy it then. Nevertheless the commenters came out of the woodwork to voice that it was overpriced.
I personally dip out of threads when I don’t see the value. It’s feels natural to me to not waste my time and energy on a forum topic or piece of music hardware that doesn’t interest me or provide me value.
Digitone II is a good example, I’ve bounced out of there and don’t check the thread.
The Digitone II is somewhat interesting to me, but I know how I feel about elektron boxes and my workflow, and for $1,000 the value isn’t there for me. As you mentioned about the op-1f, for me I probably wouldn’t pick up the Digitone II at all, at any price. The value isn’t there for me, but you don’t see me commenting that Elektron are price gouging, or that $1,000 is overpriced.
I was definitely one of the people who screamed that TE stuff is overpriced toys but learned to stfu about it. I’ve seen and heard plenty of people use all kinds of TE devices in various styles of music, the device works, someone happy using it, maybe it’s expensive but many people also see elektron boxes as overpriced garbage, always comparing it to other companies and other devices.
the only things from TE I still think that are overpriced toys are the singing statues and the table. that shit does not compute for me.
regarding value in general, I feel that people put too much significance on dry specs, people miss the point that unless the device is literally falling apart the most important thing to value should be the workflow, if a device brings you inspiration to do things, find your zone, make sounds that you like then who gives a flying fuck about what cpu does it have?
many people expect every device to be portable daw, if it’s not that then it’s instantly “not worth the price”. unless you had a device in your hands and you made something with it there’s no way to tell if it has value for you.
regarding price, well, it should not be a thing to worry about, if thing sounds good and you connect with it then what’s price anyway?
do you go scream it’s overpriced at moog mini model D just because it’s $5k mono synth? no. it sounds good, you like the sound, that’s the price for that sound.
price is irrelevant. I thought rytm is expensive as fuck but I knew I wanted it so I got it and zero regrets, it’s the last thing on my mind when I use it or hear about it. “how much did it cost?” can’t remember really, don’t care…
Seems like a thread where if you trim the fat away, most commenters would essentially agree with each other that value is subjective. I don’t know what particularly needs to be said on it. Of course when a new anything comes out, there will be people complaining about the price, about the value, about the features, etc.
But I don’t know if this thread is really for those people or not is it just a thread for people to explain their ideas about economics?? I don’t have any opinions, but here’s a slightly relevant anecdote:
I’ve worked in manufacturing where cost is a pretty rigid and standardized metric in every step of every process. Interestingly, the word value gets used in this context too, as the lean manufacturing dogma is worrying about whether a process is “value-added” or “non-value-added”. Cost is baked into this idea, as something can’t be considered value-added (under lean manufacturing principles) if a customer isn’t willing to pay for it. However, figuring out what constitutes value is still up to people. So I guess a bunch of the cheap-cologne-smelling corporate bastards get together in a conference room somewhere and hammer out what makes the products valuable
People made the very idea of “value”, so I suppose people can make it mean whatever they want
imo it’s about telling people to chill with the “corporate greed” and “cashgrab”
mentality, people evaluate dry specs vs price and instantly conclude (without trying the device) that a music company suddenly LexCorp just because the device doesn’t meet 200% of their expectations.
also I would add to this a question, what is making music for you?
is it a hobby? how much are you ready to invest into this hobby? people have thousands of $ worth of lego. where’s the value in that? it’s just plastic, right? no voices, no polyphony, no compressor, literally plastic standing in the corner, and you need to pay extra for the space that stuff occupies. but apparently people value the fun of creating stuff with that, so it’s worth it to them.
is it for work? are you looking for ROI? well, it it’s for work then you know tools cost money, you don’t skimp on tools you use daily, you want longevity, you want support, and that costs money.
That’s a fair point. I also don’t get the folks who care about what chip the thing has, so long as it gets the job done. But the TE OP1 would still be overpriced at half off. For all their talk of build quality with aeronautics-grade encoders and aluminum housing, mine fell apart in less than two years (purchased circa 2013 for ~$700). The battery wouldn’t hold a charge, audio had clicks/pop/noise, cheap feeling keys. Eventually, it wouldn’t even reliable turn on.
It blows my mind that there are enough suckers out there paying $2K for these things for TE to stay in business.
now THAT is a valid criticism of value and price, and that’s the only point I made in favor of saying something is overpriced. if someone charges me pretty penny I expect the thing to at least not fall apart!
Value is about the music (or other utility) you have made with the instrument, not the price that you’ve paid for it. Wealthier vs poorer matters less than you think, except that for obvious reasons the poorer can’t afford to make as many mistakes as the former.
There are two important aspects to value that are completely subjective:
the time that you spend with the instrument to make music
and your ability to make music in general.
These two variables are theoretically the same to everyone, whether you’re poorer or wealthier - well almost because knowledge about making music could require access to teaching of some sort.
If value for money is the discussion here (as it would be for pro musicians), you will have to express the value in terms of money: how much value (money) are you likely to generate given the initial investment price? This is a business discussion about net present value optimisation, or in laymen’s terms about an investment opportunity.
You can be wealthy and afford all the gear you like but if you don’t spend any time with it, its value will be limited to the future resale price. In this case, better keep your gear boxed and untouched for the next 20-30 years, so that it can hopefully maximise its future return.
No Vst is integrated as an Elektron box, and the cherry on top is overbridge, even with midi controllers, its hard to do a consistent mapping, do this for many devices, and you start loving the deep integration you get with Elektron stuff.
Nobody forces me to spend money on a DN2, and there are free very capable alternatives to it. I am really intrested in what tunes you would come up on it, i will play on my DN1, and see what i can do with it. Its revitalizing my intrest into the engine, and that is a good thing.
Everyone should make a track on the DN and then decide if they really “need” the upgrade or not. Value is in doing, not consumerism.
i would like to invite this crowd to purchase all of the raw materials required to make an M8 and then make a perfect copy of the M8 code on their own. something tells me, the time it would take them to successfully complete this task would be worth far more than $600. in fact, it would be worth thousands because it would prove that they are capable of creating their own unique and amazing product. i wonder why nobody does that
The Moog Modular systems and the JP8 are priced far in excess of what they offer. The Moog is slightly fairer given the amount of building by hand, but even then that’s not unusual for some Euro.
The Jupiter 8 is a very good polysynth, but it’s not a £25,000 polysynth.
I had a chance to buy a non-functional CS-80 locally, around 2009, for about $500. I probably should have bought it, looking at today’s prices. But I had no idea how to repair myself, or any idea of who to hire to repair it. Wish I had just grabbed it, even if it sat around for years until I found a good tech to repair it.
is it just a thread for people to explain their ideas about economics?? I don’t have any opinions, but here’s a slightly relevant anecdote:
